


Derelict

by flynnparadox



Series: Alien: Evolution [1]
Category: Alien (Prequel Movies), Alien Quadrilogy (Movies), Alien: Resurrection (1997)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Monsters, Outer Space, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28168413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flynnparadox/pseuds/flynnparadox
Summary: Some time has passed since the events of Alien: Resurrection. The crew of the Betty, now led by Ripley 8 - the clone of the long-dead Ellen Ripley, have renewed their smuggling and mercenary path. But they're always on the lookout for signs of the xenomorph, and they may have found something orbiting a dying star. Something different. Something hideous.Meanwhile, the android Call begins to have feelings, which is quite something to her as she shouldn't have those at all. And those feelings happen to be directed to her strong, beautiful and entirely perplexing new captain.
Relationships: Annalee Call/Ellen Ripley
Series: Alien: Evolution [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100264
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. I

2382

Annalee Call set the portable computer down on the bed as she entered their room. They had rented a small set of suites at the shitty little outpost on Io. Johner and Vriess were sharing one while Ripley and Call shared the other. The suites were grey/green, utilitarian, spare and practical. Call didn't see Ripley at the moment but heard the shower running in the bathroom.  
"Ripley," Call shouted. "Ripley, we need to talk."  
There was no answer and Call unzipped the jumpsuit she was wearing and stepped out of it, stripping down to a simple white T-shirt and small white shorts. She wandered towards the bathroom. It had been more than eleven months since Johner, Vriess and Call had met Ripley on the USM Auriga. They had stayed on Earth for a couple of months, refitting their ship, the Betty, collecting supplies before heading out into space again, plotting a course through the Milky Way, taking odd jobs here and there and always keeping a weather eye out for signs of the xenomorph, the frightening alien creatures that had overrun the USM Auriga, the creature that was a part of Ripley herself, in her very DNA. So far, they hadn't found any sign of it. It appeared as if the alien menace had been completely wiped out on the USM Auriga when it crash-landed on Earth.  
Call reached the bathroom door and opened it, walking in. She felt no shame about doing it, it was natural. She felt comfortable around Ripley. The bathroom was large and grey. A large amount of steam from the hot shower Ripley was taking filled the space. Call had trouble seeing in here.  
"Vriess says that he just needs to run one more test on the engines," she said, "then we're outta here. I heard that a tracker on S--"  
She broke off as she slipped on something on the slick metal floor and almost fell. Catching herself on the edge of the steel sink, she looked down to find the source of her sudden imbalance and frowned. A clump of hair was on the floor, black and fairly long. Call stooped down and picked up a lock of it, ran it through her hands. Something else caught her eye and she nudged forward a foot or so. There was something curled up on the floor near the large amount of hair sprinkled across the tile, something translucent and bunched up together. It looked almost like a pile of packing material.  
Call, still frowning, reached out and grabbed hold of the strange material. It was thin with an odd texture. What was it? To Call, it looked like snake skin that had been shed off a large creature.  
"Ripley?" she said and looked up at the shower.  
She couldn't see through the fogged up glass of the shower so she stood and approached it, cautiously. Dropping the shed skin aside, she paused at the glass wall of the shower stall and placed the palm of one hand on it.  
"Ripley?" she repeated.  
Through the loud sound of the shower, she could hear another sound. Was that sobbing? Call was pretty certain that it was. She decided to be bold and opened the shower stall door, revealing Ripley.  
The woman was sitting on the floor of the shower, letting the extremely hot water cascade over her, her head in her hands, face buried. And there wasn't a single hair on her nude body, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. It was her skin that Call had found on the floor of the bathroom. She had shed, cast off her old skin for a fresh model.  
"Oh, God, Ripley," Call said.  
She got down on her knees again and got into the shower with the other woman, drenching herself in the process. She didn't dare touch the other woman, not yet.  
"What happened?" she asked.  
There was silence for a moment before Ripley answered. Her voice was small, so different from the way she normally talked. "I'm a monster."  
"No," Call said, "you're not. You're just different. You--"  
"I am," Ripley cut her off. "I felt an itching all day yesterday and then, today, it became unbearable, until I came in here and..."  
She trailed off, tears flowing down her face. Call reached out to touch her but held back at the last moment.  
"They shed," Ripley continued. "The alien. I'm like them. Just like them. A monster."  
"You can't think of yourself like that," Call reassured her. "You fight monsters. You're better than them."  
Finally, she found the courage to touch Ripley, extending a hand and gently grasping the woman's bare thigh. Ripley immediately reacted, grabbing hold of Call's hand with such force that Call was knocked onto her ass, slipping in the shower. Ripley stared deep into Call's eyes, pure rage written all over her face. Call was scared.  
"Don't touch me," Ripley said. "Don't you touch me, you... thing. You're just a glorified major appliance. What would you know?"  
And she contemptuously tossed Call's hand away. Call got out of the shower as quickly as she could and ran from the bathroom, sitting on the bed. She was dripping wet, soaking the bed sheets but she hardly noticed.  
Ripley was right, of course. Call was just a thing. An android, second generation. An auton, a robot built by robots. But sometimes she felt like more. Sometimes, especially when she was with Ripley, she felt human.  
But now, after that...  
Call wiped away a stray bit of water from her right eye socket - surely just water from the shower; couldn't be anything else - and laid down on the bed. She shook her head and turned on her side, wondering how long Ripley would be in the shower. And after? What would happen after that?  
Call discovered that she had no idea at all.

2383

The robed figures brought the man - dragged him, really - into the large chamber. He was kicking and screaming, putting up quite a fight. But the men dragging him were much stronger, much more used to resistance. They easily dragged him into the vast room.  
The room looked like a cavern painted in shades of steely black. There were murals high up on its walls. At the back of the chamber, a massive face looked down on another robed figure, standing on a pedestal.  
The two men dragged the third before this person - this woman - on the pedestal. Both of her hands were raised to the giant face. When the man was dumped in her presence, she turned slowly to regard him.  
The man on the ground - no longer struggling - looked up at her in terror. He cowered from her, averting his gaze as she turned to face him.  
She wore a mask that resembled the face that she worshiped. She dropped her hands to her side and regarded the man.  
She turned to regard one of the men who dragged the third man into the chamber. "What has this man done?"  
The first man - Clinch - took a bow before speaking. The woman nodded to him, prompting him to explain.  
"Leader," he said, "this man was caught trying to flee. He commandeered an escape pod on Power Array 5. Our guards caught him in the act."  
"I can confirm, Leader," the second man - Harper - said.  
The woman regarded both of them. "You have done well." She approached the third man and reached out for him. Her gloved hands took hold of his face. Still, the man wouldn't look at her. "My child, this is the last place in the galaxy. There is nothing beyond this. Nothing that matters."  
The man's eyes suddenly flared with rage. He looked at the woman. "This is just a collection of floating junk! Orbiting a dying star! It is nothing. It isn't even that far into the Frontier! You're all delusional!"  
"Blasphemy," Clinch said.  
"You must deal with him, Mother," Harper said.  
"All in good time, my loyal guard," the woman said. Her attention was still drawn to the blasphemer. "I speak the truth, young man. It doesn't matter where we are physically. For we are balanced upon a precipice. Any imbalance and we should fall. And we will fall. One day. One day this will all be over. The Great Cataclysm will draw a shade on this galaxy and everything in it. And we may very well be the ones drawing that shade. Yes, our own selves. But today is not that day. Today, we deal with blasphemers in the way in which they must be dealt with."  
The blasphemer averted his gaze once again. He was terrified. "No, please. I beg you. Not that. Please not that."  
The woman let go of the man and turned away from him. "Hold him."  
Clinch and Harper took hold of the blasphemer. He struggled, trying to break free. It was no good. The guards held him strong.  
He looked at the back of the woman. She picked up something from the ground near her and turned to him once again. She held a metal cylinder aloft.  
The man began to babble and shake. "Please! No, God! Please!"  
"His mouth," the woman ordered.  
Clinch and Harper each freed a hand to pry open the blasphemer's mouth. When they couldn't do it, Clinch grabbed something from his robes. It was a hammer. With a few hard strikes that sent teeth tumbling to the ground, they finally forced the man's mouth open. Blood streamed down his chin and neck as Clinch and Harper held his jaws agape.  
"There is only one God," the woman said. She unscrewed the cylinder. "One God who is many."  
"One God who is many," Clinch and Harper repeated in unison.  
"One God who is the creator," the woman said.  
Clinch and Harper repeated this as well. The woman tipped the cylinder over. From within it, a black, viscous substance poured out and into the blasphemer's open, bloody mouth. The man began to shake and convulse. He coughed, choked, gasped for air.  
When it was empty, the woman screwed the cylinder closed once again and held it gently against her belly. "The God is who many. The God who gave us weapons in which to defend ourselves. Against any and all enemies." She turned away and regarded the massive face once again. "You know what to do."  
"Yes, Mother Oubliette," Clinch said.  
He and Harper dragged the shaking and convulsing blasphemer from the chamber. Mother Oubliette set the cylinder down on the pedestal once again and raised her arms towards the face.  
"There is only the Engineer," she said.


	2. II

Johner was excited. That annoying smile wouldn't leave his lined, scarred face. It was the face he always sported when they successfully pulled off a job.  
"Time to get paid," he said.  
Ripley and Vriess piloted the Betty into dock. Well, it wasn't really a dock. An old space-crawler had been converted into an ad hoc space station in orbit around some dead planet that no one had ever named.  
The outer doors of the old, massive ship opened for the Betty, and the ship proceeded inside. The outer doors closed behind them. The Betty settled into hover-mode about a raised platform. Ripley turned the ship around, parking its loading bay above the platform.  
Ripley unbuckled from the pilot's chair and stood up. Vriess nodded to her, taking control of the ship. There was no need for him to take the time to get his chair ready. They were going to be in and out. No problems.  
Ripley, Call and Johner proceeded into the loading bay. Call and Johner got the cargo ready, getting the hover-haulers up and running, while Ripley opened the loading bay doors.  
Call looked up at her. She didn't have to look at what she was doing with the cargo, she had done it a thousand times before.  
Ripley looked incredible. She still wore her flesh/synthetic leather get-up that she had acquired aboard the Auriga but had supplemented it with a weathered, sturdy bomber jacket. The collar of the jacket was up, throwing her bald head into sharp relief.  
It had been almost a year since she had "shed" her skin in that suite on Io and she had decided to keep her head shaved. It was a good look for her; excellent, in Call's opinion.  
The loading bay doors opened up, the station's artificial air still blowing hard, filling the large space after it had been exposed to the vacuum. Beyond the doors, Call could see a man walking out onto the platform. Behind him, still filing out of the main doorway into the station, were at least a dozen men - guards.  
The man in front was named Tyrell. He wore a long, dark jacket. A trench coat, her organic computer brain informed her.  
Ripley walked down the loading ramp to meet him. Call and Johner got the cargo moving, gliding along on its hover-platform.  
Tyrell held his hands out in a welcoming gesture. "Ripley, Ripley, Ripley. What do you have for me today?"  
Ripley wasn't having any of it. She crossed her arms when she reached him. "No games, Tyrell. No small talk. We exchange goods for cash, then we're outta here."  
Tyrell clutched at his chest. "I'm hurt. Agast, even. I thought what we had was special."  
"We don't have anything but a business arrangement," Ripley said.  
She turned as the cargo came down the ramp. Call piloted it up beside Tyrell. Johner looked Tyrell over, then turned his watchful eye on the dozen or so men standing behind the man. They held rifles loosely in their hands.  
Tyrell looked at Ripley for a moment longer, as if studying her. Then he smiled wide and approached the cargo. He looked expectantly at Call. Call looked at Ripley. Ripley nodded and Call handed the control device over to Tyrell.  
Tyrell took it with obvious fake gratitude. "Thank you, kindly." He punched a few buttons on the device and one of the boxes on top slid open, revealing row after row of glass containers, each about a foot long. They were filled with red, glowing liquid.  
"Yes, yes," Tyrell said. "Look at you beauties! Stellar work, Ripley. Absolutely stellar."  
He ran a fingertip along one of the containers. Giggled. He looked up at Call. "You know about this stuff?"  
Again, Call looked at Ripley. Ripley shrugged. Call looked back at Tyrell. Was he playing with her? Did he think she was dumb?  
"Compound 83," Call said. "Liquid form. They say its effects are like looking into another universe."  
"Whoever said that was full of it," Johner said. "But it's good stuff. Shit's intense."  
Tyrell nodded, held up a finger - the same one he had used to caress the glass containers. "And highly addictive. And very expensive. Just the kind of drug I like."  
Ripley chuckled. "I can think of a few other things about it."  
Tyrell looked at her, confused at first. Then his smile returned. "I bet you could. Now, about payment..."  
Ripley raised her eyebrows. "What about it?"  
Tyrell turned away from her, rubbed his hands together and then held up both of his arms. He turned back around to face her. "I don't think I'm gonna pay."  
Johner took a step towards him. The dozen or so guards behind Tyrell all held up their rifles at the same moment. Johner didn't pay them any mind. "The fuck did you just say?"  
Tyrell cracked his knuckles, one at a time as he spoke. "I said I don't think I'm gonna pay. Not worth it. Not worth my time, my effort, my money. You lot are a buncha deadbeats. Too risky to pay."  
Ripley also took a step towards Tyrell, also not intimidated by the guards. Her bomber jacket rubbed up against the cargo containers. "What do you mean?"  
"I mean," Tyrell said, "that I heard about that stunt you pulled on Yankee Station. Messy. Real messy. I figured that after a fuck-up like that, you'd take any job I offered you. And I was right, you did. And you delivered. Now that surprised me! I had you down for failing. Spectacularly. But you did it. Good for you! You know what you win? Your lives. I'm letting you fly outta here with your skins intact and not ripped from your body. Hear? Do you get the message? I hope so. Cause there ain't any alternative."  
Ripley looked down at her feet for a moment, smiled, chuckled. Then she looked up at him. Laughed. Short but sweet.  
Tyrell frowned. "What's so funny?"  
Ripley shook her head. "Oh, just something I was thinking about. You know just a second ago, when I said I could think of a few other things about this shit drug that you agreed to pay us for? Remember that?"  
Tyrell looked back at his guards. Then at Ripley. "Yeah."  
Ripley chewed at one of her metallic green nails. Her response was muffled by the action.  
"Can you repeat yourself when you're finished doing that disgusting thing that you're doing?" Tyrell said.  
Ripley pulled a large crescent moon of cuticle away from her fingertip with her teeth, spit it out. Blood began to build up on her finger. "It's flammable."  
Tyrell looked at her finger. His eyes widened. He turned to his men, frantic. Ripley flicked her finger at the cargo full of glass containers. Her blood speckled the containers and immediately began to eat away at them. Her blood was acidic, just like the xenomorph.  
Tyrell rushed into the dense line of his guards, pushing past them. "Kill em!"  
Before they could react, Ripley grabbed hold of the cargo hover-pad and pushed with all her might. She was incredibly strong and the hover-pad flew into the line of guards.  
Call got on her knees and covered her head. Both Johner and Ripley pulled pistols out of their jackets.  
There was the sound of shattering glass as one of the containers burst open, instantly lighting the contents ablaze. A fraction of a second later - enough time for the guards and Johner and Ripley to exchange a few bursts of gunfire - the cargo boxes exploded.  
At least seven guards were shredded in the explosion. Another few were taken down by the shock wave of the blast. Tyrell was knocked prone.  
"Come on!" Ripley yelled.  
The three went running up the loading bay ramp, back onto the ship. Call immediately got the cargo bay doors moving, closing on the incoming gunfire.  
"Vriess!" Ripley called. "Get the ship moving!"  
Vriess didn't have to be told twice. The Betty was instantly mobile, speeding towards the outer doors. He fired the forward guns of the ship, blowing the doors apart with ease. It was old metal, not built to withstand the firepower of the new model guns that Ripley had installed on the ship.  
As the outer doors were destroyed, the vacuum ripped through the bay. All of the people inside were torn from the platform and swept into space.  
The three of them ran into the cockpit, took their seats. As they passed through the station's doors, the frozen body of Tyrell smashed against their windshield. His hands were clutching at nothing, his eyes and mouth open in frozen terror. Ripley let out a small chuckle. Then she grabbed the control sticks and got them out of the sector.

The Aissa was formerly a floating command center, an aircraft carrier in space. But its time had passed. It was lost in some battle long ago and left adrift until a couple of entrepreneurs decided to see if they could get it running again. Turns out they could. And now it traversed the vacuum picking up old junk, tracking things through the stars and taking odd jobs.  
The Betty docked in the underside loading bay of the Aissa. It was more elaborate and better-secured than the space-crawler that Tyrell had commanded. This time, all four of them exited the ship and headed into the massive vessel.  
Call had helped Vriess to design an updated chair. It still looked patched-together and a bit drab but it was a good piece of machinery and Vriess did seem to like it.  
They traveled down the ramp and into the larger ship. Waiting to greet them was Kelly. He was tall, dark-skinned and wore a great mustache. He was approaching fifty and a little large around the middle. He finished a cigarette and pitched it aside as they approached.  
"The prodigal returns," he said with a smile.  
Ripley was not smiling. "We need to talk. All of us. Drag Bazylev out of whatever hole he's crawled into and get him down here. Now."  
Kelly instantly switched to damage control. "Now hold on, wait a minute. I'm sure whatever the problem is, we can take care of it ourselves. Right now."  
"Get Bazylev," Ripley insisted.  
Kelly sighed. "Let's retire to my office. All of us. I'll have Bazylev meet us there."  
Ripley nodded.

Not more than ten minutes later, all of them were seated in faux leather chairs and couches in Kelly's "office". It was a large space, possibly an old hanger. A computer terminal with holo display had been positioned in the center of the chairs and couches. On the nearest wall - which was still some distance away - Call could see the heads of many exotic alien species hung and mounted: trophies.  
Bazylev entered the office, wiping a bit of grease off his hands. He was at least five years younger than Kelly, also tall but with light, pock-marked, scarred skin. His black hair was starting to recede.  
He looked around at the Betty crew, more than a little suspicious. "Hey, gang. Trouble?"  
Ripley looked at him, pointedly. "You tell me."  
Bazylev exchanged a look with Kelly - who shrugged - then looked back at Ripley. "How would I know?"  
"You'd know, my friend," Ripley said, "if you hooked us up with a double-crossing, shitbag of a drug dealer. Wouldn't you?"  
Bazylev chuckled. "Double-crossing? This is... I mean, first time I've heard of this."  
Johner moved before Bazylev had time to react. He was up, off the couch he was sitting on in a flash, hand around the man's throat. Kelly reached for a pistol but both Ripley and Vriess drew first and held their aim steady at him.  
Kelly slowly moved his hand away from his gun. "Wait a minute now. Everybody just calm down."  
Ripley stood up, tucked her pistol away, confident that Vriess had Kelly covered. She crossed to Johner and Bazylev. "Your partner here hooked us up with with a double-crossing waist of a human being." She said the last two words with considerable contempt. "I wanna know if you knew about that."  
Kelly chuckled nervously. He gestured towards his partner. "The man is his own. But I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding. Nothing serious."  
"Nothing serious?" Johner said with a snarl. "We almost got our fucking faces burned off, man. Somebody better give me a good goddamn reason not to twist this fuck's head right off his shoulders. Right now."  
Ripley was still staring at Kelly. She raised her eyebrows. "The man's got a point. Start talking, Kelly."  
"I don't know what you want from me, Ripley," Kelly said. That nervous laugh again.  
"Johner," Ripley said.  
Johner began to squeeze. Bazylev grunted in pain and protest.  
"Okay, okay!" Kelly said. "Don't hurt him. The man's a sonovabitch but he's my friend. Come on, now."  
Ripley took a step towards him. "Talk. Give me something."  
"Alright," Kelly said. "Alright! So it was a bad deal. I get it." He took a step forward. Vriess cocked his shotgun. Kelly stopped, looked at the man, then at Ripley. "Can I access the terminal? May I access the terminal? I've got something you'll be interested in. Believe me."  
Ripley nodded slowly. Kelly approached the computer, turned it on. The holo display came to life, sputtering into a sickly green. A few keystrokes brought up an interface. "Now I know that you've been looking for something. For signs of something. I remember you talking about it not long after we first met. You gave me some descriptions. Well, we picked this up from a relay station yesterday."  
The holo display switched to a scan of a ship. A ship with a very unique design. Call stood up from the chair she was sitting in. Ripley approached the computer. Vriess lowered his shotgun. Johner didn't seem too interested. He was still enjoying choking Bazylev.  
The ship on the display was U-shaped, like a wishbone. Ripley had described it to Call on more than one occasion and, of course, it was in old USM files, extracted from Weyland Yutani hundreds of years ago.  
Kelly smiled when he saw Ripley's interest. "I knew you'd like that. It's what you're looking for, isn't it?"  
Ripley only nodded. She was studying the scans. "Where is this?"  
Kelly pointed at Johner and Bazylev. "Let him go first."  
Ripley looked up at him, then turned to look at Johner. She shook her head. "No deal. Tell us."  
Kelly smirked. "How do I know you still just won't kill us both after I tell you where it is?"  
"Because we're the good guys," Johner said over his shoulder.  
Kelly shook his head. "Alright. It's close. Just a couple systems away. You heard of Chance?"  
Ripley shook her head but Call knew. She nodded. "The Dyson Ring."  
Kelly nodded and pointed at her. "The Dyson Ring. Yes. It's in orbit as part of the Dyson Ring."  
Ripley studied him for a moment. Then she turned away, ran a hand over her bald head. Turned back. "I don't trust you, Kelly."  
Kelly raised his hands in supplication. "What do we have to lose at this point?"  
Ripley turned to Johner and Bazylev. "Johner."  
Johner began to squeeze harder again. Bazylev batted at his attacker but it didn't phase Johner.  
Kelly was frantic by this point. "Alright, stop! Look, we'll take you there. We'll take you there ourselves, alright! Come on."  
Bazylev - despite the pressure on his neck - looked at his partner like he was crazy. Kelly waved a dismissive hand at him. "Come on, what do you have to lose? I'm offering a free ride. No power of your own spent! Now that's a great deal!"  
Ripley studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. She turned back to Johner, nodded to him. Johner - looking a little disappointed - let go of Bazylev. The tracker clutched his throat, coughed, gasped for air. He doubled over, looked like he was going to vomit for a moment, then suppressed it.  
"See," Kelly said. "Friends again! Isn't it beautiful?"  
Ripley didn't look convinced. "We'll see."

The blasphemer floated in zero gravity. It was a large, dark space, vertical and at least five kilometers in length. The walls were made of smooth metal.  
The pain he felt was incredible. His body was already starting to bloat, to expand. He considered trying to bash his head against the wall until he died - thus ending the pain - but he could already feel his bones beginning to liquefy. He was losing control of his body.  
His clothes had been shed some time ago. His skin itched. There was very little light in the massive space but in what little he could see, his skin was red, irritated. Infected. He wished he could scratch it but his arms and hands were rapidly becoming useless gloves of fluid-filled flesh.  
And he wasn't alone.  
There were other creatures floating in the vast space. Horrible beings. Beings who would have normally attacked him on sight. Beings who would have normally torn him limb from limb.  
But they ignored him. The blasphemer knew why and wished he could shed a tear. Wished that he didn't know the truth.  
That he was becoming one of them.


	3. III

The Aissa moved steadily towards its destination. It had been three days, but they were close. Call walked down a seemingly endless hall. Old, worn grey/green walls surrounded her. She shook her head. It was a such a contrast to the Betty. So much bigger. So much more complex.  
And yet, Bazylev and Kelly were its only two crew-members. It shouldn't have been possible - a ship this size - but Kelly was an amazing pilot and Bazylev was one Hell of an engineer. Call knew from previous conversations with the pair that they had jury-rigged the ship, streamlined it, stripped it down to its essentials. Made it work for just the two of them. It was truly remarkable.  
If only the two of them weren't such a shady pair. They were trackers, middle men. They scoured the galaxy looking for information. They made contacts on every populated system that would let them approach. They would sell the information they uncovered. And they would connect people in need of some underground service with the right people to pull that service off. It wasn't exactly above board.  
But Call had no place to criticize. She and the rest of her crew were no better: smugglers, drug runners, pirates. Nothing virtuous about them. But everyone had to make a living. You did the nasty to get by, to make ends meet. And maybe - just maybe - this was all going to pay off. If this lead was real, then Ripley and Call would be able to destroy one more piece of the Alien menace out there among the stars. Hell, they could probably learn from the ship before destroying it. Find something that they could use against the creatures. Maybe use it to track down more ships like itself. The possibilities were endless.  
Call reached the end of the hallway and found Ripley on an observation deck, looking out at the stars. Call leaned in the doorway of the room, not wanting to disturb the other woman. She just watched. She wondered what Ripley was thinking about. She wondered whether she would even be able to understand.  
Like Call, Ripley wasn't really human. She was a hybrid. Xenomorph and human. A clone. She didn't seem to know her place in the galaxy.  
Call could relate. Maybe they were more alike than Ripley would like to admit.  
"You're staring," Ripley said, still watching the stars, not looking back at Call.  
Call was caught off guard. Of course Ripley knew that she was there, watching her. She was incredibly observant.  
"Just checking in on you," Call said.  
Ripley nodded and finally turned to regard the other woman. She smirked. "Worried about me, Call? How cute."  
Call shrugged. "Just wanted to make sure you don't need anything. You know, for the night."  
Ripley's eyes narrowed. She took a few steps closer to Call. "What do you think I would need?"  
Suddenly, Call couldn't look at her anymore. "No, no. Nothing. Just checking is all."  
Ripley closed the distance between them. Call moved aside so that her captain could get through the doorway. Ripley stopped in the doorway, extremely close to Call. She reached up and took hold of Call's small face in the palm of one hand. Turned her head to one side, then the other.  
Call looked at her out of the corner of her eye. What was she doing? She was so hard to figure out.  
Ripley finally turned Call's face to look her straight in the eye. They stared at each other for a moment. Then Ripley nodded. "Hmm."  
She let go of Call and proceeded into the hallway. Call - perplexed - turned to watch her go. Her eyes drifted down to the woman's behind and she sighed. Then she caught herself.  
What was that? Was that a glitch in her programming? She frowned. It was slightly worrisome.  
After a moment, she shook it off and followed Ripley towards their quarters on ship. They wouldn't reach Chance for more than a few hours. Enough time to get some sleep. Call found herself looking forward to lying in her bunk. As long as Ripley was near.

Bazylev and Kelly had converted several rooms of the Aissa for guest quarters. And since they had so much space, they decked those rooms out. The room that Ripley and Call shared was furnished with what looked like exotic furs and rugs. The two beds in the room were more than bunks but lower to the ground than proper beds usually were. But they were wide enough to accommodate two if the need arose.  
Strictly speaking, Call didn't need sleep. She often used the night hours onboard the Betty to run through her short recharge cycle and get work around the ship done. Sometimes she would just lie down and close her eyes, and imagine sleep and dreams. Often, she found herself not able to keep her eyes closed for the long periods of time that humans slept. Sharing accommodations with Ripley, she would often lie down facing away from the other woman. The reason for this was two-fold. The first was practical: since she would often have her eyes open, she knew that it would feel creepy - perhaps even alarming - to watch someone while they slept. The second, however, Call found harder to explain.  
She felt that watching Ripley while she slept would be too painful to her. This didn't make sense. Call was synthetic, an android. She registered physical pain as data streaming to her organic computer brain and reacted to it. But this wasn't physical pain. It was emotional. Which shouldn't have been possible. And, yet, here it was. Perhaps it was the nature of her existence, as a second generation artificial person, both built and designed by first generation androids. Perhaps it was some kind of evolution. Whatever it was, it was perplexing.  
Call turned onto her back in her bed and stared at the ceiling. One of the crew - Kelly, probably - had strung several furs there, hanging across the room. Her eyes narrowed as her eyes studied them, her mind on other things.  
Ripley 8. The eighth clone of Lt. Ellen Ripley, who had died over two hundred years ago. Her DNA mixed with that of the alien, the xenomorph. She was a complete mystery to Call. The android never knew what the hybrid was going to do, how she was going to react. All she knew was that this new Ripley would often have a smile on her face. And not always a pleasant one.  
Call heard a sound come from the other bed, where Ripley slept. Call resisted for a moment then gave in to temptation. She rolled over onto her other side and looked at Ripley.  
Ripley was on her back, naked, a hand between her legs. Eyes closed, head swept back, mouth open. In ecstasy.  
As Call watched, Ripley turned away from her, exposing her beautiful behind to the android. Call turned onto her back once more, not knowing what she should do.  
Because here was the thing: Ripley knew that Call didn't sleep - not really - and, of course, she knew that she was in the same room as Call. So, she had to have known that Call would notice this.  
Was it simply a case of Ripley not caring what Call saw or thought? That it didn't matter because Call was just a complex piece of machinery? Or was it something else?  
What if it was an invitation?  
Call turned on her side once again and watched as Ripley pleasured herself. A slow, soft, low moan escaped Ripley's lips.  
Call carefully pulled her blanket away and sat up, dropped her legs over the side of the bed. She was dressed in her usual night-time attire: a simple white shirt and underwear. The furs and rugs on the floor were warm and Call found herself making fists with her toes.  
She looked down at her feet for a moment, still not sure how to proceed. Then she came to a decision and stood up. Slowly, softly, she approached the other bed. She slipped into it, getting up close to Ripley but not quite spooning with her. Not yet.  
She put a hand out and held it right above Ripley's left hip. She was alarmed to see that her hand was trembling ever so slightly. Surely a glitch in her programming.  
She could see the small, fine hair on Ripley's skin. It was erect, excited by the endorphins coursing through her body.  
Call finally let her hand touch the woman's skin. Ripley didn't flinch, didn't react at all. She kept doing what she was doing.  
Call scooted herself closer to the other woman. They were spooning now, Call's chest touching Ripley's back.  
Call ran her hand down Ripley's side, to her upper leg. She could feel Ripley's movement, the pulse of her body. She rested her head on Ripley's shoulder. Whispered into her ear. "I can help. Let me help."  
Her hand snaked down into Ripley's crotch and cupped the woman's hand. For a moment, their fingers intertwined and Call could feel the curly hairs between Ripley's legs.  
Then Ripley used her other hand to grab hold of Call's exploring hand, stopping her. She half-turned onto her back and looked in Call's direction. Not really seeing her in the darkness.  
"No," she said. "You can stay but you can't touch. At least not there. You can watch."  
Ripley let go of Call's hand and the android retreated to her hip. Ripley continued to caress her body. Call could feel sweat beading up on Ripley's skin.  
It was all so exciting. Call had never experienced anything like it before. Ripley's movement quickened. Her pulse raced. Call could feel the woman's heart pumping, working overtime.  
A moment later, there was a kind of release. As of something coursing or crashing through Ripley's body. Like a wave. The woman shuddered, moaned and trembled.  
Call wrapped her arm around Ripley's waist, wanting to feel what she was feeling. Wanting to share in her warmth. Wanting to help bring her over the edge.  
She pushed her head closer to Ripley until they were cheek to cheek. Ripley's eyes were closed. Her mouth was still open.  
Call smacked her lips. "Kiss me."  
Ripley, still experiencing her orgasm, shook her head fiercely.  
"Kiss me," Call insisted.  
Finally, Ripley half-turned once again and they were face to face. Lips to lips. Call leaned in but Ripley backed away.  
She shuttered one last time. Then she opened her eyes. She took a few deep, labored breaths. The two women looked at each other for a moment.  
Then Ripley smiled. Almost a smirk. She landed a quick peck on Call's lips. Quick as a snake. "Thanks." Then she turned away from Call once again and pulled her blankets up around her, pushing the android away.  
Call sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. She stayed there for a moment, just looking at Ripley. Soon, the woman was asleep. Snoring, even.  
Call got up from the bed and crossed the room to her own. It wasn't more than a couple of meters away but, to Call, it seemed like a thousand miles.  
After what felt like ages, she reached her bed, got into it. She pulled her covers over and turned on her side, away from Ripley.  
She stared into the darkness for some time. Then she closed her eyes. Role-playing sleep.

Chance was a failed Dyson Ring. A vast collection of statites in orbit around a white dwarf star - designated X13750 - most of their solar sails smashed and broken or in various states of disarray. It was developed almost seventy years before as an attempt to provide sustainable power to three worlds in the system. These were mining colony worlds but various factors - the drying up of mines on those worlds, the inability of many of the statites to handle the kind of power that the star provided - led to the abandonment of the project. Many people lost their jobs over this gargantuan failed project.  
But a few of the statites were still operational. Hawke - who sat in the pilot's chair of her small hauler looking at the approaching Dyson Ring - knew of seventeen in particular. The only people who still used the Ring to recharge their ships were pirates, smugglers, refuse. The Ring was so far outside the usual space-lanes that those were the only kind of folk whom it attracted.  
Hawke stood up from her pilot's chair and let her ship float gradually towards her destination. She yawned and stretched her arms and legs.  
She was in her late twenties. Tall, with auburn hair that hung just below her shoulders. She had a long face with wide-spaced eyes and a prominent nose. She wore a black catsuit made of faux leather. Reve had told her that it was too much. "One step too many," in his words. But she liked it. It made her stand out from the usual pack of greasy-haired, bottom-feeding gun-runners.  
Reve himself emerged from the cargo hold of the small craft. He was shorter than Hawke and older, having just turned forty. He was wiry, with buggy eyes and thinning, dark hair.  
"Oh, we here already?" he asked.  
Hawke spoke with her usual strange accent. "Correct." Reve insisted that the accent was put on, that she was acting. But Hawke would always just smile mischievously when he brought it up.  
"Which one we hooking up to this time?" Reve asked.  
"I'm thinking number five," Hawke said.  
Reve frowned. "Number five? Haven't docked with that one in... what? A year? Maybe two?"  
Hawke nodded, shrugged. "Perhaps. It's the closest one in our flight path."  
Reve looked resigned. "Okay. If you say so. Can't say I like the idea. I've heard things."  
Hawke narrowed her eyebrows. "What have you heard?"  
"Things, is all," Reve said.  
"Out with it, Reve," Hawke insisted.  
Reve wiped his hands on a rag and wandered over to the navigation computer. He punched a few buttons. "It's silly."  
Hawke approached him, leaned over his shoulder. Whispered. "If it's so silly, why did you bring it up in the first place?"  
Reve shrugged. He turned to her. "I've heard people say that it's haunted, alright? Happy now?"  
Hawke stifled a laugh.  
"See?" Reve said. "Told you it was silly."  
"I'm not laughing," Hawke said, clearly suppressing one.  
Reve shook his head and crossed the small cockpit to the co-pilot's seat. He sat down in it and looked at their trajectory. "Fuck you, alright. How 'bout that?"  
Hawke regained her composure and took her seat in the pilot's chair once again. She looked at Reve and smiled. "I'm only teasing you, dear."  
Reve nodded. "Yeah, well, don't. Makes me nervous. I mean, look at it." He stood up and gestured at the approaching Ring. Power Array 5 was coming into view. "All those umbilicals hooked up to it. What for? It's weird. There's someone living in that honeycomb of statites, satellites and broken ships."  
Hawke shrugged. "And, if there is? It's no business of ours. We dock, recharge and leave. Six or seven hours at the most. What could go wrong?"  
Reve looked at her like she was crazy. "Why would go and say a thing like that? Why would you jinx it? We're out here in space, you know. Fucking everything could go wrong!"  
Hawke smiled. She reached over and pinched his cheek. "And that's why I love you. You're like a scared little rat. My rat."  
Reve nodded, then shook his head. "Rat. Great. Beautiful."  
Hawke piloted the ship towards the statite. It was going to go perfectly. She had a good feeling about it.


	4. IV

His name was Slice and he was a scumbag. He was okay with this. Satisfied, even.  
He was tall, slim, attractive in a shady kind of way. He was on the cusp of thirty years old. His dark hair was on the longish side and he had mirrored sunglasses implanted in his eye sockets. He was almost always grinning, no matter what the situation.  
"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I think that just about takes care of everything. Unless I missed something."  
The three robed figures said nothing. All four of them were in a corridor in Power Array 5. Slice had insisted that they meet here. They used to send him to one of the busted up ships in the complex network of floating junk about the power array. Most of those ships didn't have any gravity and that made the transactions awkward. All that bumping into things. Just so uncool.  
And Cool was Slice's middle name. Well, that wasn't true. His middle name was Eugene but no one knew that. No one still alive, that is.  
The robed figures took possession of the cargo and began to cart it away. It was basic items: food, supplies, essentials. Anyone could have provided these people with this kind of stuff but Slice had been in the right place at the right time. It was an easy gig. Plus, they paid him well.  
Slice watched the robed men leave, shaking his head. They were weird guys. Everyone of them that he had met.  
And yet, they fascinated him. What kind of people must they be to live this kind of life? To exist in this complex series of broken ships, bits of space junk, and this power array, all connected by a series of umbilicals.  
Impulsively, he jogged a ways down the corridor to catch up with the departing robed men. "Hey, not so fast. Come on, now. How 'bout a tour? I mean, I've been bringing this stuff to you for, what? A year now? That about right?"  
The robed figures didn't stop, making Slice keep pace with them. One of them - Ferrell was his name - spoke, not looking at him. "Are you not adequately compensated?"  
"Compensated," Slice repeated. "Course I am. Why do you think I keep coming back?"  
Ferrell spoke in a clipped, short staccato. "Then our business is concluded."  
"Just like that?" Slice asked.  
Finally, Ferrell stopped, turned to him. The others kept moving, taking the cargo with them. Ferrell seemed to study Slice, looking him up and down. "Yes. Just like that."  
And that was all. He turned away and joined his compatriots. Slice grinned, half-laughed. He stayed where Ferrell had stopped in the corridor, punching an open palm. Then he turned back and headed up the corridor.  
He exited the airlock into his small cargo ship. He settled into his pilot's chair and sighed. He'd figure those bastards out one day. They were up to something in there and he was going to find out what it was.  
Just as he was going to depart the power array, he spotted another small cargo ship approach. He grinned wide. "Now there's a ship I know!"  
He got up from his chair and watched as Hawke's ship docked with the power array. He made to leave. He was going to go say "hi".

They were all standing around the cockpit as the Aissa approached Chance. Kelly was playing opera over the speakers. Call's organic computer brain had identified it right away: Handel, Julius Caesar.  
The orbit of the Dyson Ring was 1 AU, massive. At one time, seventy five statites orbited the dying star. Now, some of those power arrays had fallen into disarray, if not falling out of orbit entirely and crashing into the white dwarf. As they approached their destination, all of them were struck by the strange alien craft.  
Its shape was only part of what marked it as truly alien. It looked organic, like bone but somehow metal. Steely grey and black. It stood in stark contrast to the floating space junk around it.  
Call narrowed her eyes. She approached a nearby computer, brought up the view and zoomed in. Clustered around the ship were several other old ships and other junk, including one of the original statites. All of them were connected by a complex, web-like network of umbilicals. The whole affair looked handmade, thrown together.  
Call was especially interested in a tall - at least five meters high - ship that was shaped like a cross. Absently, she crossed herself in the Catholic fashion. An irrational gesture but she was programmed for such things. She identified two small ships docked with the power array statite itself. They must have been recharging.  
"Get us in close," Ripley said. "I'm going in."  
"Now hold on a minute," Kelly said. "You think that's a smart move?"  
Johner approached the man. "I'm trying to wrap my head around the fantasy that you have a say in this matter."  
"Well, I'm the one driving, aren't I?" Kelly asked.  
"Yeah, like a taxi driver," Vriess offered.  
"No, Kelly's right," Call said.  
The others turned to her. Ripley looked at Call like the android was something she found on the bottom of her shoe. "Why?"  
Call stood up to the others. "You're being impulsive."  
"So?" Ripley said with a smirk.  
"So we could all be killed," Call said.  
Ripley turned away dismissively. "We're ready for whatever's in there."  
Call didn't back down. "Oh, we are? Like we were on the Auriga? Because I seem to remember losing three people. And that's not even counting DiStephano and Purvis. Those are unacceptable losses."  
Ripley stopped and slowly turned back around. "What do you suggest?"  
Call hesitated. Then spoke. "Well, it's clear that there are people living in that complex. It seems obvious to me that they're there because of that ship. So, it must be guarded. I say we dock with one of the outlying ships, sneak in. If we meet resistance on the way, then so be it. We deal with it then."  
Ripley sighed. "You have a point."  
"Thank you," Call said.  
Kelly punched a sequence into a console. Shook his head at the results. "Scans show that our communicators won't work in there. They must have a signal blocker. Probably have some kind of internal comm system. Physical connections only."  
"What about weapons?" Bazylev asked.  
Call shook her head. "It's too dangerous for heavy weapons."  
"The fuck you say?" Johner said.  
Call punched a few buttons on her computer and her enhanced image appeared on the main spaceshield. She approached it, gesturing to the various space junk. "Look at these ships. What do you see?"  
Johner frowned. Bazylev approached the spaceshield, pondering. "Buncha junk."  
Call nodded. "Right. Meaning that we're probably dealing with old, worn hulls. Thin hulls. A stray bullet could rip right through them."  
Johner shook his head. "We gotta bring in something. Jesus, we can't go in there with our dicks hanging out."  
"That's not a problem for some of us," Call said. That got a smile from Ripley.  
"Then what do you think?" Ripley said.  
"Shock pistols and rifles," Call said. "Flame units."  
Ripley looked at Kelly. "You have that kind of ordinance on board?"  
Kelly chuckled. "Honey, what ordinance don't we have on board?"  
They shared a smile. Ripley nodded. "Good. Let's load up."

Mother Oubliette walked down the curving, main hallway of the alien ship, head bowed, hands together in prayer. She spoke under her breath. "Father, hear my prayer. Let the Great Fire cleanse the stars and bring the blasphemers to justice. Even as we use them to cleanse the worlds that we may encounter on our Great Journey. Amen."  
Clinch and Harper followed two meters behind her, giving her space. They were silent, watchful.  
The hallway stretched out in front of them. Dark. Dimly lit by candlelight lining the walls. The flickering flames cast long shadows across the floor. The three robed shadow figures looked misshapen. Wrong.  
They reached their destination, a room at the end of the hallway. The circular doorway opened as Mother Oubliette approached it.  
This room had many similarities to the central chamber where Mother Oubliette held sway and the believers worshiped. But it had differences, as well.  
The floor was lined with metal containers, much like the one that Mother Oubliette had used on the blasphemer. They were sealed.  
Like the hallway, the believers had placed candles all over this huge room. The light revealed a face at the back of the chamber, also like the central chamber. But this one was smaller. Scarier. Mother Oubliette shuddered as she approached it.  
It was a screaming skull, its mouth and eye sockets empty. A skull made of metal. Three meters high.  
With obvious apprehension and reverence, Mother Oubliette approached it. She held out a shaking hand. Made contact with the skull.  
She trembled. Behind her, Clinch took a step forward. "When will it be time, Mother?"  
Slowly, Mother Oubliette turned to him. That implacable mask. She was silent for a moment.  
Then: "Soon, my son. Very soon."  
Clinch nodded and stepped back in line with Harper. He bowed his head in prayer as Mother Oubliette raised her hands to the ceiling.


	5. V

5

Hawke smelled Slice before she saw him. It was that pungent scent of body odor combined with too much cologne. She knew that smell all too well. "Jesus."  
"Not happy to see me?" Slice said.  
Hawke and Reve were in the control center of Power Array 5. It was a small space, barely enough room for three people. Reve was at a terminal, making sure that the statite was working properly and wouldn't overload their craft when they started transferring power. Hawke leaned against a wall. Behind her a window looked out at the expanse of stars beyond. As the statite rotated, the white dwarf came into view.  
Slice came striding into the room, grinning, filling the small space with not only his smell but his sheer presence. It reeked more than his body spray. "Seems like ages since I ran into you, Hawke." He shot a less pleasant glance at Reve. "And you, of course, uh... Don't tell me."  
Reve shook his head. "Reve. My name is Reve. Don't act stupid."  
"Sorry, sorry. Little joke on my part." Slice did not look sorry.  
"You're the joke, Slice," Hawke said.  
Slice looked back at Hawke. "Good one. Wish I'd thought of that."  
Hawke crossed her arms across her chest and shot him an evil eye. "What are you doing here?"  
Slice proceeded into the room. Reve had to adjust his standing to let the man in. The intruder acted disinterested in the pair of them. He picked up a scrap of discarded metal, examined it for a moment, then tossed it aside. Turned to regard them. "Just passing through."  
"Bullshit," Reve said. He turned to Hawke. "He's following us." Back to Slice. "You following us?"  
"What?" Slice said. "Following you. That's ridiculous. Look, I deliver food and supplies for the weirdos that live here. Come once a month."  
Reve turned back to Hawke. "I told you people lived here! It was obvious. All those umbilicals."  
Hawke rolled her eyes. "What does it matter? We'll only be here for a few hours. Does everything check out?"  
"What?" Reve asked. "Oh, the array. Yeah, everything works fine. Should be good to go."  
"Then start transferring power," Hawke said.  
"Oh, I see," Slice said with an unpleasant grin. "You're leeches."  
Hawke looked taken aback. "We are nothing of the kind."  
"Parasites," Slice said, nodding.  
"Like you've never siphoned power from a floating piece of space junk," Reve said.  
Slice chuckled to himself. "Oh, I have. Just not this one."  
Reve narrowed his brow. "Why not?"  
Slice was still chuckling, under his breath now. He settled down. "Because the kind of people who live here might not take so kindly to having their power siphoned away from them."  
Reve looked at Hawke. She was silent. Reve looked back at Slice. "We've never had any problems before."  
Slice nodded and crossed back to the doorway. He leaned in the frame. "I'm sure you haven't. They tend to turn a blind eye most of the time but if they decide that you've stolen from them one too many times..."  
"What?" Reve asked. "What would they do?"  
Slice looked down. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his belt, smacked them against the back of his hand. He extracted a cancer stick and lit it up. "How do you think all these ships got here in the first place?"  
Reve looked at Hawke once again. Hawke stared at Slice. She was trying to tell if he was lying. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision and turned to Reve. "Perhaps we should wait in the ship."  
Slice nodded. "That's a good idea. You go do that. You two are..."  
He trailed off, a confused look spreading over his face. He was looking past Hawke, out the window. Hawke caught his look and turned to look over her shoulder. "What's that?"  
Slice was by her side a moment later, looking out the window. Reve joined them. Hovering in a loose orbit a few kilometers away was a large ship.  
"That an old Kline 2600?" Reve asked.  
Slice nodded. "Looks like it. What the Hell is it doing way out here?"  
Hawke shook her head. "They aren't in service anymore. Haven't been for years."  
Slice suddenly pointed. "Look at that." As they watched, a small ship slipped out of the large docking bay of the old warhorse. It sped towards the complex of ships and space junk clustered around Power Array 5.  
"Looks like it's headed to the other side of the complex," Hawke said. "We should find out why they're here."  
"What business is it of ours?" Reve asked.  
Hawke ignored him and looked at Slice. "Can you get us to the other side? If they're here then they're here for a reason. Perhaps we can relieve them of whatever they're trying to retrieve. I'd take our ship but I don't want to be spotted."  
Slice took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out. He nodded. "I can."

They took the Betty to the complex, choosing an old space ship several pieces of junk removed from the alien craft in which to dock. Their scans revealed that most of the ships in the complex had no gravity. Only the alien ship, the power array and three random ships in the complex were so equipped.  
Vriess seemed to like this. In zero G, he didn't have to use the chair. They were all equals.  
Bazylev, Ripley and Johner had chosen flame units as their weapons, each also carrying a shock pistol as a sidearm. Vriess and Kelly had chosen shock rifles. Call settled for a simple shock pistol.  
The ship they had chosen had a large docking bay. This was part of the reason they had chosen it: for easy accessibility. They carried Vriess into the airlock but once it sealed behind them and they all became weightless, they let him go. He smiled and floated into the air, the same as the rest of them. His obvious pleasure was infectious - to Call, at least - and she found herself smiling along with him.  
They hacked into the inner airlock door as simply as they had hacked into the outer airlock door. Soon, the inner door opened and they were treated to a view of the interior of the ship.  
It was old. There was a musty smell. What lights remained flickered and sputtered, casting weird shadows across the curved hallways ahead.  
Call was fairly certain that it was an old emergency medical vessel. One that would travel where needed, usually in orbit above a war-torn world. She could see operating rooms on either side of the hallway directly ahead of them. ICU units to her right. Casualty rooms to her left.  
They passed a check-in or administration area just past the airlock. Call saw a pen floating in the weightless environment above the desk. It spun. Danced. For a moment, she was transfixed. Held in place by this simple, beautiful, small thing.  
She shook it off - whatever it was - and joined her crew-mates as they proceeded into the ship. They pushed themselves along the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Making their way along the corridor.  
Call looked at Ripley. The clone was in her element. Determined, focused, on the lookout. But what would she do when they reached the alien craft? The derelict? On the Auriga, she had seemed half-interested in destroying the alien threat and half-interested in joining them. In the end, she had chosen to destroy the hideous newborn alien that had killed DiStephano and had almost killed Call herself. So she had chosen life not death. Seemingly.  
Ripley noticed that Call was looking at her and shot a glance in her direction. Call looked away at once.  
They proceeded through the ship. It was one of the larger models in the complex: big and expansive enough to treat as many patients as possible in a planetary war.  
Call could see the rear airlock approaching. They had found nothing of interest, as of yet. But here, Call could hear someone talking. Under their breath. Ramblings from an insane mind.  
"Bones, bones," the voice said. It was seemingly female. Grizzled. Hardened. "Old bones. Rats and bones."  
Finally, Call could see the woman. She was curled up into a ball and drifting through the weightless space near the airlock. Blocking their exit.  
They didn't know it yet but they had just met the Junk Mistress.

Clinch had a place to himself. He suspected that some of the others did, as well, but not many. There was little of what one would call personal space on the alien craft. Clinch had found empty quarters on a connecting ship, one of the few that still had artificial gravity. He had made the space his own and filled the room with candles and an altar.  
He was naked, robe cast to a corner of the room. He knelt in front of the makeshift altar. The face of the altar was a rough approximation of the genuine article back in the central chamber of the alien craft. It was sculpted out of molten metal. Clinch had been a welder in his previous life. Before all this.  
He used a short, five-headed whip to flog himself, striking his back on one side, then shifting to the other. Wincing with the pleasurable pain that came with each blow. Tears in his eyes.  
"When?" he asked the altar. "When, Father? Mother promises that it is soon but it has been too long already. When will the Rapture come?"  
He doubled over, dropping the whip to the floor. His back was bloody. He openly cried, hands covering his face.  
After a moment, he regained his composure and stood up. Collecting his robe, he dressed and left his quarters, locking the door behind him with his DNA signature.  
Making his way slowly back to the alien craft, he made a full circuit of the ship. He doubled back once for good measure. He only found three other believers awake this late in the cycle.  
When he was sure it was safe, he ventured into the central chamber. Mother had turned into a place of worship but it had once been the control room of the ship. Terminals lined a central space - the pedestal on which the Mother worshiped - and Clinch knew that, if necessary, one could raise the cockpit out of this space. That is assuming that the ship - which was at least six hundred years old - could still fly.  
But that wasn't his goal tonight. He accessed one of the terminals using the flute-like instrument that he had made after the fashion of the engineers themselves. This brought the terminal to life.  
It had taken him some time to figure out how to send the distress signal but he thought he had finally cracked it. A few minutes later, he was turning the spherical control mechanism to the farthest frequency that he could find and activated what he believed was the distress signal.  
He shut down the terminal and the blue, holographic display disappeared. He stood there for a moment, wondering if he had done the right thing. This would surely mean death for all of them. And anyone else that happened to be in the complex. He nodded.  
Yes. This was what he wanted. He wanted them all to die. Honestly, he wasn't sure that this alone was enough to accomplish his goals. He may have to take one last, horrible attempt.  
A nudge towards oblivion.

If his name were to be translated into English, it would have been something close to Orrery. He was nine feet tall. Strong and pale-white. Human-like but not human.  
Currently, he was in statis. A large cyro tube set into the corner of the small space encased him in measured, cold life. There was a harmonious tone and the computer monitoring the cyro tube powered up in a haze of blue holo imagery.  
It woke Orrery. The cryo tube opened. The engineer lay where he was for a moment, his breathing mask still in place. Then he stirred and sat up. He took off his mask and put it aside.  
A moment later, he was out of the tube and accessing the main computer. He sifted through the data - the distress signal - and knew what he had to do. His duty.  
He crossed the length of his small ship to the cockpit and got into place. A few keystrokes was all it took.  
He set a course for Chance.


	6. VI

6

"Rats on every side!" the Junk Mistress said.  
She was filthy. To Call, she looked like a rat herself. She was curled into a ball and covered in grime. She smelled. Bad. She appeared to be in her sixties, at least, but it was hard to tell under all the dirt and refuse.  
All of them looked at her as she slowly spun in the weightless environment. Kelly was the one who approached her, a hand raised towards her. The rest of them hung back, not sure who the woman was or what she was up to.  
Kelly tried on a smile. "Hello there. My name's Kelly. What's your name?"  
The Junk Mistress only cackled. She spun a few more times and came to rest, her back against the far wall, near the airlock.  
"Do you live here?" Kelly tried.  
"Of course I fucking live here!" the Junk Mistress said. "Think I'm here on vacation, dark man?"  
Kelly narrowed his eyes. "There's no call for that."  
The Junk Mistress pushed herself off the wall and floated menacingly towards Kelly. Johner and Bazylev pointed their weapons at the woman but Kelly waved them off.  
"You're wrong," the Junk Mistress said. "There's every call for it. Every bit of it. Rats, rats."  
"Rats?" Johner said. "What's your deal, lady?"  
She floated towards him. Johner pinched his nose. She stopped less than a meter away from him. "Do you have any rats?"  
Johner shook his head. The Junk Mistress spun away from him, clearly disappointed. "Do you know where to find any?"  
Johner looked around. "Throw a rock, I'm sure you'll hit one in this place."  
The Junk Mistress turned away from them and spun back around, a terrible smile on her face. "Have any of you seen a rat in zero gravity?"  
They all shook their heads. All but Ripley. Call was certain that Ripley hadn't seen a rat in zero G, either; she was just holding her ground.  
The Junk Mistress laughed. "They're big. Like dogs. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a dog."  
Kelly looked uncomfortable. "You were saying about the rats?"  
"Yes!" the Junk Mistress said. "Rats all through here. Must have smuggled away on a supply run and scurried into the umbilicals. Clever fuckers. Now they're all over the complex."  
"Is there any place without rats?" Kelly asked.  
The Junk Mistress appeared to consider the question. She licked the tip of her pointer finger and held it aloft, as if she were checking the wind. "Perhaps."  
She was silent for a moment. Kelly looked at the others, shrugged, then turned back to her. "Well?"  
"In the derelict," the Junk Mistress said.  
Ripley approached, finally interested in the proceedings. "You mean the alien ship?"  
The Junk Mistress shot a glance at Ripley and was taken aback, as if seeing her for the first time. "Yes. The alien vessel."  
"What do you know about it?" Ripley asked.  
The Junk Mistress floated towards Ripley. She stopped no further than several inches away from the other women. Despite the smell, Ripley didn't flinch.  
"Many things," the Junk Mistress answered.

Hawke, Reve and Slice sat in the converted escape pod. Hawke and Reve sat together, opposite Slice, Hawke's arm draped over Reve's shoulder. The escape pod was an old, standard model, designed for short trips at best; usually a simple trip through a planet's atmosphere. It wouldn't survive extended space flight.  
It was mostly green, with white cushioned seating set in the wall in a complete circle. The floor was cushioned, as well. Drab but comfortable.  
Reve noticed that there was a timer that had been set into the wall near the ceiling. It was counting down from twenty-six minutes. Other parts of the escape pod had been jury-rigged, modified. There was no way to control it, which worried Reve. They didn't know where they were going. Not really. They were relying on Slice's word, which was never a good thing.  
Slice himself leaned forward, excited to talk to them. "They've got a few of these things rigged throughout the complex. Old escape pods converted to travel in set flight patterns to other parts of the complex. Most of em don't have gravity but we got lucky. Clever set-up, if you ask me."  
"Yes," Hawke said, clearly bored. "Quite clever."  
"Dangerous, if you ask me," Reve said.  
"How so?" Slice asked.  
"This tub could just decide to go spinning off into space," Reve explained. "You ever think about that?"  
Slice sighed. Leaned back in his bench seat. "No, Reve. Hadn't thought of that." He suddenly leaned forward again. "You know, you are one cheery son of a bitch. Anyone tell you that?"  
"Frequently," Reve said.  
"He can be cheery," Hawke said. "But he chooses his moments."  
"Right," Reve said. "Long after we dock."  
Slice lit up another cigarette. "You're a barrel of laughs."  
Reve stood up. He pointed to the ceiling, not far from the timer. "You know what that is, Slice?"  
Slice took a drag on his cigarette and stood up as well. He examined the area where Reve was pointing. It was a small square of grey among the green of the escape pod.  
Slice shook his head. "No, I don't."  
Reve chuckled. "No reason you should."  
"Well, what is it?" Slice demanded.  
"It's an explosive charge," Reve said. "Wish I had noticed it before we got moving or I never would have let Hawke set one of her pretty feet into this shit box."  
Slice stared at the spot on the ceiling, mouth agape. He touched his temple and his embedded shades changed color. "Well, fuck me."  
"Yeah," Reve said. "Now how are we supposed to know that that timer isn't counting down to a goddamn explosion? Huh? Tell me."  
Slice studied the square charge and the timer for a moment longer. Then he raised his hands in a "what are you gonna do?" gesture. "I can't." He sat back down, leaned back. "Too late to worry about it now."  
"That all you're gonna say?" Reve said. "Really? Unbelievable."  
After a moment, he sat down, as well. Hawke put her arm around him again and patted his chest. "Don't listen to him, hon. We'll be alright. Probably just a fail safe. You know, to take care of intruders."  
Reve shook his head. "Like us. Hope they aren't paying attention."

"What do you know?" Ripley demanded.  
The Junk Mistress retreated to a corner of the room. A pile of trash floated there, and the old woman used it as a kind of veil. She hid behind it with a smile. "I like to think of them as space bats."  
Ripley narrowed her eyes and shot a glance at Call. The android frowned. "She means the rats."  
The Junk Mistress floated out from behind the refuse. She pointed at Call. "That's it! She has it!" She glided towards Call. Reached out for her. "This one is different." She turned back towards Ripley. "This one, too! Different, different. Both different!"  
Johner leveled his flame unit. "I'm tired of listening to this bitch. Let me fry her already!"  
The Junk Mistress sailed away from Call back into the corner near the ceiling. She cowered. Ripley turned to Johner. She didn't have to say anything. Her eyes did the talking. Johner diverted his gaze and turned away, frustrated.  
The Junk Mistress laughed. "Came from the stars, it did! Far beyond the stars."  
Ripley turned back to the woman. "The ship. You're talking about the derelict."  
Slowly, the Junk Mistress nodded. Something crawled out of her hair and across her face. Her tongue caught it as it passed by her lips and she ate it, whatever it was.  
Ripley chuckled and looked down. "Tell me what you know." She looked up into the woman's eyes. "Or I'll let my big friend here do whatever it is that he wants to do to you."  
Johner turned back around. He seemed to have regained a bit of his swagger. He smiled. The Junk Mistress eyed him for a moment and - Call was sure - a flash of fear crossed her eyes.  
She nodded. "I will. Me and the rats will tell."  
"That's what I want to hear," Ripley said with a cruel smile.  
The Junk Mistress reached into her loose, torn clothing with both hands. Johner, Kelly and Bazylev all raised their weapons, trained them on the woman. Call looked from them to the woman. Ripley kept her cool.  
The old woman came out with two objects, one in each hand: a bone and a dead rat. She let them go and they floated in the weightless space in front of her. She pointed to the bone. "Ship."  
Ripley nodded. Silently, she prompted the woman to continue. The three men relaxed a little, but their weapons were ready.  
The Junk Mistress took hold of the bone and seemed to play with it, treating it like a child treats a toy airplane. "It floated through the cosmos. For hundreds of years! Dead. Dead and gone. Lost." She took hold of the dead rat with her other hand. "It was found. The cult was small then. Only a few believers." She smiled. "But they picked up others along the way."  
"Cult?" Call said.  
The Junk Mistress whipped around in her direction. Floated towards her. "Yes! The cult! The Church of the New Apocalypse, they call themselves." A laugh. "Catchy, eh? I thought it might have been too much."  
"And you're one of them?" Ripley asked. "This cult?"  
The Junk Mistress looked taken aback. "No, no. Not anymore. I was! It's true, I was. But not in a long time. I escaped."  
"Not very far, I'd say," Kelly said.  
"Far enough," the Junk Mistress said. "Far, far away. Far as I could get. To the end of the complex. Might as well be the end of the universe!" Another laugh.  
"Can you get us there?" Ripley asked. "To the alien ship?"  
The Junk Mistress looked scared again. She fiddled with the bone and the rat, picked at the latter with the former. "It's not safe."  
"Fuck safe," Johner said. "We're going in and we're going in hot. Ain't nothing getting out alive except us."  
Kelly looked at him. "Is this the way you always are?"  
"Only when I have a hard-on," Johner explained. "Come on! Let's do this thing."  
Ripley approached the old woman. "Take us there. Show us the way. A shortcut. Something."  
The Junk Mistress floated down to meet her, letting go of the bone and the rat. They drifted away. She took Ripley's face in her hands. Ripley batted them away. The old woman backed away a little. Then she nodded. "I will."  
She proceeded to the airlock and activated the doors. They slid open down the middle. The Junk Mistress gestured elaborately at the passageway. "This way."  
She drifted over the threshold and floated into the next ship down. After a moment, the others followed.

The believers assembled in the main chamber. They had all been awakened, every one of them. Clinch looked about the crowd. There were around forty of them in total, which was about right. Some of them would have been monitoring other areas of the complex.  
Mother Oubliette stood above them on her appropriated pedestal. She swept her hands out across them all. "You all pledged your loyalty to me, did you not?"  
There came the sound of assent from the believers. Clinch's voice was among them but he cast a weather eye about.  
"Yes," Mother Oubliette continued. "You all pledged yourselves to me. I have a plan. I am working under the orders of the one true God. Do you all agree?"  
Again, a chorus of positive voices. Believers. Followers. Clinch didn't like where this was going.  
"There is a traitor among us," the Mother continued. "A usurper. Someone who would try to bring about an apocalypse of his own design. One not decreed by God. By the Engineer."  
Clinch slowly began to back his way out of the chamber. His hand clasped around the hilt of a dagger hidden away in his robes.  
"This person," Mother Oubliette said. "This Judas! Has betrayed us all. It has been reported to me by one of the faithful that he has been sending messages. Distress signals. Trying to contact God himself. Blasphemy!"  
Clinch was almost out of the chamber when a hand clamped down on his left shoulder. He looked around and found that the hand belonged to Harper. "You too, Harper?" he whispered. Harper nodded.  
"He was one of my inner circle!" the Mother cried out. She pointed through the crowd to Clinch. That implacable mask. "Take him."  
"I'm sorry, Harper," Clinch said.  
He pulled the dagger out of his robes and immediately plunged it into Harper's right temple. Up to the hilt. Harper's mouth opened and closed as his body locked in place. He gasped, spittle coming out of his mouth.  
Clinch yanked the dagger out of the man's head. A long, thick stream of blood sprayed from the wound, arcing through the air. Harper fell to the floor, his arms flailing about, his body twitching.  
Clinch made a run for it. His path was suddenly blocked by another believer. Clinch didn't hesitate. He slashed out, tearing a long trench out of the man's neck.  
He kept going, ignoring the pained gurgling sounds the man made as he toppled over. Clinch ran and ran and ran. He was faster than most of them. In better shape. More importantly, he had explored more of the complex than many of them.  
He could lose them if he could reach the next ship over in time. And he was a lucky man.  
He had a chance.

The connecting ship that the Junk Mistress had led them into was filled with more trash than the last floating hunk of junk. Big clouds of the stuff drifted through the weightless air about them. The whole place reeked of rotting garbage. The information that Call's nose sent to her brain was deeply unpleasant.  
To Call, this next ship appeared to be a cargo or transfer vessel of some kind. The quarters were small and sparse, but it had large cargo holds. The design was old, at least a hundred years out of date.  
"Secrets!" the Junk Mistress screamed. "Secrets, secrets! Hidden away. The cult has many secrets! They hide and scurry." She looked as if she had come to some kind of revelation. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, elusive. "Like rats. Scurry like rats."  
"That's all well and good," Ripley said, "but you said that you knew a shortcut to the ship. We've been floating through this hellhole for too long. Where is it?"  
The Junk Mistress seemed to come to her senses once again. She turned to Ripley. "This way. This way."  
She led them through the ship. Soon enough, they came upon what appeared to be a hallway off to their right. There was a thick layer of garbage floating in this space, obscuring their view. The Junk Mistress floated through it, brushing it aside. "Come. Come this way."  
Ripley and Call were right behind her. The rest staggered behind, having trouble with the refuse that the three in the lead knocked out of their path.  
The Junk Mistress came to a stop. Ripley didn't seem to have noticed. The trash was so thick through here. But Call noticed.  
She was rounding about, about to confront the old woman, when she and Ripley emerged out of the trash and into a relatively clean, small, circular space.  
Ripley frowned. Then she looked alarmed. She whirled about, looking for the Junk Mistress.  
All she found was laughter.  
Then a door closed on Ripley and Call, sealing them inside the small space. The Junk Mistress must have activated it from the outside.  
The automated escape pod dislodged from the ship and started on its predetermined course. Ripley went nuts, slamming her fist into the door again and again.  
Call was worried that she would bust through it and send them both sailing out into space. She grabbed the other woman gently by the shoulders. After a moment, Ripley calmed down, allowing herself to drift aimlessly through the weightless space.  
Call looked about. She found the timer set into the wall near the ceiling, right next to an explosive charge.  
It was counting down from forty-one minutes.


	7. VII

Slice led the way out of the escape pod. He, Hawke and Reve emerged onto the deck of an old space station, one of the nearly ancient Seegson Electronics models.  
Hawke looked around. They had docked in an empty slot in the old station's loading bay. From there, it was a short walk to the main transit center, allowing access to the rest of the station.  
"They'll have to come through the old station here to get to where they're going," Slice said. "Unless, of course, they were looking for something in one of the two ships past the station here."  
Hawke turned to him with an intense look. "And if they were?"  
Slice shrugged. "It's unlikely. Just an old cargo ship and a medical freighter."  
"Oh," Hawke said, "you've been there, then?"  
Slice grinned. "Well, no, I haven't."  
"Then how would you know that there wasn't anything of value there?" Hawke asked.  
Slice swept his hands out in a grand gesture. "Trust me, alright?"  
Reve shook his head. Hawke just stared at him.  
When neither of them responded, Slice started walking away from them. His footsteps echoed through the old space station transit center. The walls were a worn green, the floor a scratched, steely grey.  
He lit up a cigarette and looked around the large space. "No gravity in either of those old ships." His voice reverberated throughout the center. "Gonna take a bit to get to us. Anybody got an actual plan? Or were you just planning on talking em out of whatever they're looking for?" He turned towards the other two. They had been following several meters behind him.  
Hawke gave him a naughty look. Which she then turned on Reve. Reve pulled a small, rectangular object from his belt.  
"What is that?" Slice asked.  
Reve smiled. "Something they won't be expecting."

Johner grabbed the Junk Mistress with one hand and tossed her across the hallway. She sailed through the weightless air and slammed into the wall. She curled into a ball, trying to make herself small. Johner trained his flame unit on her.  
Kelly grabbed hold of him. "Hold on."  
Johner shot him a murderous look. "Give me one reason not to burn this bitch alive. One!"  
Kelly though about it for a moment. He turned to the woman. "He's got my vote."  
Bazylev was near the old woman. "Let's think about this."  
"What?!" Johner said. "You? You, man?! You wanna think about this? The guy who set us up with a double-crossing drug dealer."  
"Maybe we're overreacting," Bazylev explained. "That's all I'm saying."  
"I didn't harm them!" the Junk Mistress proclaimed.  
Vriess pushed his way past the others, floating towards the woman. "Then what did you do to them? Huh? Talk or you're dead."  
"I sent them to where they wanted to go," the old woman explained.  
"The alien ship," Vriess said.  
The Junk Mistress spun through the air and unfolded herself. She approached him, one hand outstretched. "Yes. The ship. They're headed straight for it."  
Johner scoffed. "Don't you think we might have wanted to go with them, lady?"  
The Junk Mistress looked at him intensely. "It's not for you." She looked around at the rest of them. "Not for any of you. Only for them. Only for the different ones."  
"How are they going there?" Bazylev asked. "I don't understand."  
"A pod," the Junk Mistress said. "A pod on a set path. Headed straight for them."  
"Is there another one?" Kelly asked.  
The Junk Mistress seemed to consider the question. "Perhaps. Yes, perhaps."  
Vriess grabbed her with his free hand. "Where?"  
"The station," the old woman said.  
Vriess looked at Kelly. Kelly nodded. "Next piece of floating junk up. Old Seegson space station."  
Vriess turned back to the Junk Mistress. "I swear if either of them are hurt, you won't have Johner to worry about. Just me."  
Johner floated closer to the two of them. "You're taking us there."  
The Junk Mistress nodded. "Yes. Yes, I will."  
"Then let's get moving," Vriess said.  
That's when all of them heard it. A pained, pleading cry echoing down the garbage-filled halls of the old cargo ship. It was a man. After a moment, the cry solidified into words. "Food. Please. Hungry."  
Bazylev turned towards the sound. "What the fuck is that?"  
The Junk Mistress looked afraid. More than when Johner tossed her across the room. She approached Bazylev and grabbed him by the shoulder. "You don't need to go there. You don't need to see."  
Bazylev shrugged her grip away, knocked her aside. "I want to know what it is."  
"I'm curious, myself," Johner said.  
"It's none of your concern!" the old woman insisted.  
"You've got no authority here!" Johner said.  
Soon, all of them were floating towards the source of the sound. The Junk Mistress followed them, looking worried. They headed down the hallway until they came to a crossroads.  
Around the corner, the pained cries intensified. They pushed themselves around it and proceeded down this new corridor until they reached a large cargo hold.  
Floating in the very center of it was a ball of flesh. Vriess narrowed his eyes. Then those eyes widened in horror.  
It was a man.  
But like no man Vriess had ever seen before.

Ripley slammed the panel shut, floated up a meter and kicked the box. All she got for her efforts was a few sparks.  
"It's no good!" Call said.  
Ripley took a deep breath and flicked away a few drops of sweat that had collected on her bald head. She floated until her back was up against the opposite wall. "I know."  
"There's no way to stop it," Call said.  
"I know," Ripley repeated.  
She covered her face with her hands and slowly ran them down until only her mouth was veiled. Call studied her, concerned. She approached her.  
Ripley dropped her hands away from her face. "I could cut myself. We could burn our way out of here."  
Call narrowed her eyes. "All that would do is expose us to the vacuum."  
Ripley looked at her. "You'd be fine."  
"Yeah, I would," Call said. "And you'd be dead."  
Ripley shrugged. "We don't know that. They can survive in a vacuum. I've seen it. Why not me?"  
Call frowned. "When you killed the newborn on the Auriga and we lost pressure, did you feel alright then?"  
Ripley looked down. "Guess not."  
"Okay, so don't throw your life away," Call said.  
Ripley looked up at the timer. Thirty-six minutes and counting. She shook her head. "We don't know what that means. Maybe that's when they kill us. Blow us up." She chuckled. "Maybe we should take our chances out in the Void."  
There was silence for a moment. Ripley looked down at the floor. Call did a turn around the small escape pod and came up with nothing new. They were on a set path and there was no way to stop it. And the destination could mean death.  
When she turned back around she saw tears in Ripley's eyes. She was trying to hide them but they were there. Call started to float towards her but stopped. She didn't know what to do.  
"All for nothing," Ripley said under her breath. "All worthless."  
Call shook her head. She completed her path and took hold of the other woman. "You've lived. That's something."  
It was Ripley's turn to shake her head. "I wasn't strong enough. Smart enough."  
One of the tears fell, instantly becoming weightless and floating through the air. It splashed against Call's cheek, breaking apart.  
Call rested her forehead against Ripley's forehead. Closed her eyes. "You're the strongest person I know. And I don't just mean physically."  
"What would you know?" Ripley muttered. "You're just a thing."  
Call moved her head back to look Ripley in the eye. She nodded, slowly. "I know. But I'm here. Right now. Isn't that enough?"  
There was another pregnant pause. A silent passage. They stared at each other.  
Then Call broke the silence. "It's all been worth it. For me, at least."  
It was hot in the escape pod. Call could see sweat dripping down Ripley's skin. It beaded on her lips. Call leaned in and brushed her own lips against them. The bead of sweat transferred to her and Call slowly opened her mouth.  
She was exploring. Waiting. Anticipating.  
Ripley responded. She opened her own mouth. Just a little bit. They touched their lips together.  
The kiss started out small and expanded, growing in intensity and intimacy. Call could feel her artificial heart beating. It was faster than it should have been. Ripley's heart beat even faster. Call was afraid it was going to burst out of her chest like one of those things.  
Ripley's hands found Call. Found her midsection, her hips. Call grabbed hold of Ripley's neck. Then a hand beat a path down her chest.  
Ripley closed her eyes and breathed deep of Call's artificial breath. She spoke right into the android's mouth. "If we're going to die here, then make me feel something."  
Call nodded furiously. She practically tore Ripley's bomber jacket off. It floated off in the weightless air of the pod. Ripley's top came next, Call furiously unbuttoning it and throwing it into the air.  
Ripley let go of Call and started to slip off her pants. She managed to get them to her ankles. She tried to pull them over her boots but it was no good and she stopped, just leaving the pants hanging there. She raised her legs, parted them.  
Call gasped as she saw Ripley open up to her. More faults in her programming: she began to shake, tremble. It was as if she couldn't control her own body.  
She floated towards Ripley once again, and took hold of the small of her back with one hand, the other finding its way between the woman's legs. Their lips met once again. Their eyes closed.  
Call made love to Ripley, her small hand disappearing into the bigger, stronger woman. It was Ripley's turn to gasp as the kiss broke and she rested her head on Call's shoulder.  
Call thrust in again and again. Periodically, she would stop and gently caress the folds of soft, wet flesh there. She used everything she knew about the female body.  
But there had never been a body like this one. And there probably never would be again.  
Ripley was starting to lose it. Call could feel her body tremble. She was close.  
They started to spin in zero G. Two bodies moving as one. They turned completely over, end over end.  
Ripley bit into Call's shoulder. Call winced at the pain. The bite was hard enough to draw milky white blood.  
They kissed again. Call could hear Ripley beginning to moan in her mouth as their jaws worked together. In perfect unison.  
They may have been dead soon but for now - for this small moment - everything was perfect in Call's eyes. This was what she had wanted. What she had been waiting for her whole synthetic life.

The man - the thing - that floated in the center of the cargo hold was bloated, his skin stretched beyond belief. Red and irritated. Infected. He was naked. His neck looked like a hunch and his chest and stomach were enormous.  
His legs and arms, however, looked like empty socks and gloves. Deflated and hanging useless from his ball of a body.  
But none of that was the worst of it. No, the worst of it was that his massive chest and stomach moved. Something inside churned.  
"What the fuck is that?!" Johner said. He turned around to face the old woman. "What the fuck, lady?!"  
She looked desperately at the bloated man - the blasphemer - and then at Johner. She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. She floated up to the man and pulled another dead rat from her torn clothes.  
"He's just hungry," she explained.  
The man opened his mouth as the Junk Mistress fed him the dead rat. He bit off the dead rodent's head. Vriess could hear the sharp snap of his jaws as they clapped together. Was that...? It sounded like metal.  
"Strictly speaking," the Junk Mistress explained, "he doesn't need to eat. But he likes it."  
"Jesus, lady," Johner said.  
As the blasphemer ate the rat - which looked normal-sized to Vriess, despite what the mad woman had claimed earlier - the Junk Mistress turned to them. She seemed to not know what to do with her hands. "He wasn't with the rest of them. Got a spray of the stuff right in the mouth. Ran off." She shrugged. "Found his way here. The change is soon. We have to..."  
She trailed off. The blasphemer was shaking, his loose flesh gyrating in the weightless air. The Junk Mistress slowly began to turn towards him.  
Blood began to pour from all of the blasphemer's orifices. The red wave drifted into the air and spread throughout the cargo hold. There was a series of horrible, wet tearing sounds.  
Vriess could see the man's face start to pull away from his skull. His eye sockets started to separate from the bone. There was a pop and his eyes fell out of his head on their bloody stalks. They drifted away from the man.  
The Junk Mistress turned to face the rest of them and started towards them, panic splashed across her face. She didn't make it.  
Something came shooting out of the blasphemer's stomach and speared her, stopping her in an instant. To Vriess, it looked like the tail of the xenomorph. The sharp tip of it was bloody. The Junk Mistress looked down at the tail that had passed straight through her body. She began to scream.  
What came tearing out of the man's body wasn't the xenomorph. It was something different. It looked related but not the same.  
At all.  
The blasphemer's face tore away entirely now, exposing its skull. It was metal. Covered in the man's blood. Its mouth dropped open.  
And a hideous scream reverberated throughout the cargo hold.


	8. VIII

With a mighty swipe, the spiked tail of the blasphemer tore itself out of the Junk Mistress' body. It ripped right through her side. Vriess could see her intestines spill out of her body and float into the air. The guts danced around her like a cloud.  
The blasphemer shook off the rest of its human form and swept it aside. The man's distended skin drifted weightless through the air.  
Vriess could see it clearly now. The once-human, now-metal, permanently-screaming skull formed the center of the creature. It was mounted at the front of a pulsating ball of black flesh. Extending from this undulating ball were six xenomorph-like tails, which Vriess understood to be more like tentacles in this case. Each was segmented and topped with a razor-sharp tip.  
It was like something out of a nightmare.  
Johner and Bazylev didn't hesitate. They both aimed their flame units and fired at the creature.  
Vriess had seen fire in zero G before but the site always transfixed him. Fire always struck him as a kind of living creature but this was especially true in a weightless environment. The flame danced and surged towards its target, twisting and turning.  
The blasphemer dodged out of the way of both of these first attacks. It swept down, using the Junk Mistress as cover. The old woman was still alive, though she was now too shocked to scream. She opened and closed her mouth in horrible pain. Blood flowed from it in a wave.  
Bazylev and Johner redirected their fire towards the moving creature. The Junk Mistress was instantly set alight. Now, she did scream as her flesh was cooked until it was black.  
The blasphemer dropped below the burning old woman and came right for Bazylev. It led with its tentacles, sharp points flying towards the man. Its screaming metal skull of a face screamed as it came.  
Vriess moved before Johner, leveling his shock rifle and firing. The powerful blast of electrical energy hit the creature in the side. Instantly, its tentacles dropped, momentarily disabled.  
Bazylev turned to Vriess. He opened his mouth to thank the man when a long, powerful stream of black liquid sprayed out of the mouth of the creature.  
It hit Bazylev directly in the eyes. He reeled back in surprise and disgust, the black liquid flowing into his open mouth. Kelly turned towards the creature and fired his shock rifle. It was hit center mass. The stream dropped away at once.  
Vriess hit it with another blast of electrical energy as Johner turned his flame unit on the creature. After a moment, it was engulfed in fire.  
Its dying screams were worse than its living ones. It spun end over end, weightless, in the air. Up and away from them. It hit the now silent and dead Junk Mistress and they both went tumbling across the cargo hold.  
Bazylev coughed, choked, spit the black sludge out of his mouth. The horrid liquid cascaded into the air. He wiped it out of his eyes. Kelly was at his side right away. "You alright, partner?"  
Bazylev coughed again, but nodded. "I think so."  
Kelly nodded, too. He looked at the others. "We better get moving. Onto the space station."  
Both Vriess and Johner looked at Bazylev with suspicion. Vriess approached them. "You sure you're alright?"  
Johner seemed to size Bazylev up. "Yeah, man, I don't want any surprises."  
"I'm fine," Bazylev insisted.  
Johner didn't seem convinced. Vriess felt much the same. But he nodded. As they prepared to leave, Vriess looked up at the burning remains of the Junk Mistress and the horrible creature. God, he hoped that there weren't any more of those things floating around. A moment later, they left, hoping that they'd be able to find the second escape pod that the Junk Mistress had mentioned.

Ferrell and three of the other believers approached Mother Oubliette. She was in her private quarters in the alien ship, though her door was standing open. She was turned away from them, seemingly looking at a wall. Candles lined the room. Animal skins provided warmth.  
Ferrell got down on one knee. "Mother, I must report that the traitor Clinch has eluded capture."  
Mother Oubliette slowly turned towards them. She looked at each of them in turn, finally resting her gaze on Ferrell. She reached out and touched the top of his head. "I forgive you, my son. Rise."  
He did so. She turned her hands palm up and held them in front of him. Ferrell mirrored the gesture. When it was complete, Mother Oubliette dropped her arms to her side.  
She turned away once again, running a gloved hand over the flame of a candle. Thinking. "He must have left the ship." She turned back to them. "Send teams throughout the complex. Leave no stone unturned. Find him."  
"Yes, Mother," Ferrell said.  
"Go now," Mother Oubliette said.  
Ferrell didn't need to be told twice. He and the others left her alone in her chambers. He would chase Clinch to the ends of the galaxy if he had to.

They were half way through the umbilical to the space station when all of them dropped to the floor of the tube. They all landed with a thud. They took a moment to catch their breath and look around.  
Vriess figured it out first. "We've hit gravity. Fuck."  
He dragged himself back over the invisible threshold. After a moment, he was mobile again, floating up into the air. The rest of them stood up. Kelly and Bazylev resumed their way towards the station but Johner stopped and approached Vriess.  
"Looks like this is where we part ways, little buddy," he said.  
Vriess sighed. "I know."  
"Unless you want me to strap you to my back."  
Vriess shook his head. "No."  
"Yeah, didn't think you'd like that," Johner said. "Doesn't give you much control." He looked down for a moment, then back up at Vriess. "It was more a thing with you and Christie, anyway."  
Vriess nodded. "Yeah. Get going."  
Johner looked frustrated, turned towards the others, then back to Vriess. "You gonna be okay?"  
Vriess nodded. "Yeah. I'll head back to the ship. Never know when you incompetents will need to be bailed out of a bad situation."  
"Fuck you very much," Johner said. "I'll try to find a comm and tune into our frequency. Probably something like that on the station."  
"Probably. Now it's my turn: are you gonna be okay?"  
Johner smiled. Spread his arms in a grand gesture. "I'm nothing if not careful."  
Vriess shook his head. "There's no way you're getting out of this alive."  
Johner's smile wavered. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."  
He turned to leave. Bazylev and Kelly were almost to the end of the umbilical.  
"Johner, you son of a bitch," Vriess said.  
Johner stopped, turned back. He raised his eyebrows.  
"Watch out for Bazylev," Vriess said.  
Johner only nodded. Then he turned his head to one side, cracking his neck. He turned around and followed the others up the tube towards the station.  
Vriess stayed where he was for a moment, watching them leave. He shook his head again. Dumb bastards. Impulsive and stubborn, the lot of them.  
He turned around and began to float back towards the cargo ship. He wished them luck but anticipated the worst.

Ripley and Call floated weightless in the pod. They were still holding each other. Ripley had actually dozed off, falling into a restless, troubled kind of half-sleep. Call cradled her, even though she was considerably smaller than the other woman. One of the distinct advantages of being weightless.  
Call looked up at the timer and saw that there was only three minutes remaining. She narrowed her eyes. How did that happen? Normally, her internal chronometer would have informed her of the exact time at every single moment. She realized with alarm that she hadn't thought about the time since she had made love to Ripley. Something was definitely wrong with her.  
But there was no time for that now. Gently, she woke Ripley with a kiss. The woman came around, her eyes fluttering open. They seemed to focus and find Call. She smiled.  
"That was quite a shattering orgasm," she said. "Thank you."  
Call shrugged. "You're welcome. But you better get dressed. That timer is about to go off."  
Ripley took a look for herself. She nodded and the two parted, floating away from each other. Ripley began to get dressed, now all business. As she did so, Call retrieved her jacket and held it out to her.  
Once Ripley was dressed, she grabbed the jacket and struggled into it. She grabbed her flame unit and checked it, making sure it was still operational. When she was confident that it was, she looked up at the timer again.  
Less than two minutes. She nodded. "So, if we die..."  
"If we die?" Call repeated.  
"If this pod blows up," Ripley said, "or does something worse."  
"Worse?"  
Ripley nodded. "Then I want you to try to survive."  
Call looked at her incredulously. "What's makes you think I can survive an explosion?"  
Ripley shrugged. "I don't know. You're resilient."  
Call shook her head. "For sake of argument, let's say I do survive. What next? What do you want me to do?"  
"I don't know," Ripley admitted. "Get back to the ship? That sound good?"  
"I suppose," Call said.  
"As long as you do something."  
"All right."  
They were silent for a moment. Then Call turned to Ripley. "An explosive charge of that size would obliterate me. Just so we're clear."  
Ripley sighed. "Can't you at least let me have the luxury of going to my death thinking that you're still alive? You know, give me a little hope?"  
"I guess I'm just practical," Call said.  
Ripley turned to her. "To a fault."  
"I..." Call trailed off.  
Ripley's eyes narrowed. "What?"  
Call looked away from her, not able to meet her gaze. "I think I might be malfunctioning."  
"Explain," Ripley said.  
Call shook her head. "I don't know for sure. Little things. My programming seems to be off. I'm feeling--" She broke off abruptly. Feeling. That word again. She shook her head. It didn't make any sense.  
"Feeling," Ripley prompted. "Feeling what?"  
"That's just it," Call said, looking back up at the other woman. "Don't you see? It doesn't make any sense. I shouldn't be 'feeling' anything at all. It's preposterous."  
Ripley considered it silently. She looked away, off towards a wall.  
"It's stupid," Call said.  
"I don't know," Ripley said, still looking off into nothingness. "I'm learning to accept a lot of things lately." She shrugged. Looked at Call. "Who the fuck knows? God? Me? I have no idea."  
The timer hit zero as they were looking at each other, distracted. There was a beep and they both looked up at the timer in anticipation. Nothing happened. They looked at each other, both of them smiling.  
"We're not dead," Call said.  
"That's something at least," Ripley said.  
The escape pod lurched as it locked into dock. The two of them were jostled about for a moment. There was a hissing sound as the pressure of the escape pod adjusted to the new atmosphere.  
After a moment, the two of them dropped to the floor. Artificial gravity was the new normal, it seemed.  
The doors of the escape pod opened. Beyond it was a short tunnel. Beyond that, a dimly-lit hallway. The walls were black and looked at least partially organic.  
Both of them were awestruck by the obvious alien architecture. Call knew that Ripley would have recognized it from LV-426. She had seen it on the Nostromo's monitors. Call had seen pictures in the banned histories and in the old Weyland Yutani files she and her sister had stolen.  
They started into the ship. Ripley trained her flame unit ahead of her. Call pulled out her shock pistol and held it at her side.  
They stepped into the unknown.  
Into the darkness.


	9. IX

Johner looked up the stairwell. Nothing. Just like all the other stairwells they had so far marched up. The station was empty, it seemed.  
The elevators and transit pods that had once shunted visitors from floor to floor were non-operational. They could have popped an elevator shaft open and climbed up but the stairs were easier. Johner was of two minds. It would have been safer going up the elevator shafts if anyone were in the station on the lookout for intruders but it was slower. The stairwells were more dangerous but easier. Plus, he was lazy.  
Kelly had his shock rifle trained ahead of him as he moved up the steps. "Remember that station orbiting Paris?"  
Bazylev nodded. He seemed to be sweating quite a bit. It wasn't all that hot in here, Johner observed.  
"That place seemed empty, too," Kelly continued. "Whole damn place was falling apart. Couldn't even get past deck six. Hull breaches all the way up." He shook his head at the memory. "Anyway, Johner, there wasn't anybody there. I mean, we didn't see anyone in the engine room or decks one to five. Nobody. Then, all of a sudden, boom, deck six: whole squad of Colonials. They were on some kind of search and destroy mission. We barely got out of there alive. Must have dampened their signal, you think, Bazylev?"  
Again, Bazylev only nodded. Kelly frowned. "You okay back there?"  
He looked over his shoulder at the other man. Johner narrowed his eyes.  
"I'm okay," Bazylev said.  
It seemed to take him some considerable effort to speak. He was breathing heavy. He rubbed his right eye with the back of his hand. Johner could see that his eyes were bloodshot. Alarmingly so.  
Johner chewed at his bottom lip, grit his teeth and swung his flame unit at Bazylev. He thought he had the drop on the man but Bazylev was quick. He swung his own flame unit on Johner at practically the same moment.  
There was an instant standoff. Bazylev and Johner looked intensely at each other. Kelly was ahead of them on the stairs, in the lead. He looked frantic.  
"Hold it!" he said. "Come on now. What's going on?"  
Johner spoke to him without looking at him, his eyes trained on Bazylev's bloodshot eyes. "There's something wrong with your friend here."  
"What do you mean?" Kelly asked.  
"He's delusional," Bazylev said. "I'm fine."  
"He was hit with that shit," Johner explained. "He's gonna turn into one of those things."  
"What?!" Bazylev said.  
Kelly took a step down the stairs, closer to the other men. "You don't know that."  
"The Hell I don't," Johner said. "That old bitch said something about the guy getting hit by a spray of some damn kind in his mouth. And he turned into that fuckin thing! And then your friend here was hit in the face like a whore in a holo porn. He's gonna change, man!"  
Bazylev started babbling in a language Johner didn't understand. Was it Russian?  
Kelly strained. "Hold on, you're talking too fast! I can't understand--"  
Johner cut him off. "Waste him, Kelly!"  
There was a sound of something falling to the ground - something metal - coming from the floor above them. Johner - on edge - looked up towards the source of the sound. It was a mistake.  
Bazylev immediately stepped into Johner's space and knocked his flame unit up and out of range. Before Johner could react, Bazylev hit him in the face with the butt of his flame unit.  
Johner was caught off guard and he reeled back, blood arcing from his mouth into the air. Before he had time to right himself, Kelly hit him in the temple with the butt of his own rifle. Johner crashed against the stairs, his flame unit falling off to one side. He wasn't down for long.  
He sat up, pissed. Both of the other men's rifles were trained on his face.  
Bazylev looked deranged. There was a snarl on his lips. He was dripping with sweat. And his bloodshot eyes were swimming with what looked like tiny streams of black liquid. Kelly looked unsure of the situation. His gaze kept shifting from Johner to his friend.  
Johner concentrated on Kelly. "He's gonna change, man! We can't trust him!"  
Bazylev was babbling in that language again. Kelly looked at his friend like he was insane.  
"The fuck is wrong with you?" Kelly asked.  
There was a pause. A moment of silence. Bazlev kept his gaze locked on Johner. Kelly looked at his friend. Johner looked back and forth between them. Bazylev began to cough. Black sludge ran down his chin, expelled from the back of his throat.  
Finally, he looked at Kelly and Johner sprang into action. He reached out and grabbed the barrel of the infected man's flame unit with his left hand, pushing it up and out of his face. He made a fist out of his right hand and slugged the man in the face, making sure to sock him in the nose, away from that black shit.  
Bazylev reeled back and pulled the trigger of his flame unit. Fire erupted into the air above them. Johner kept his grip firm on the weapon as he stood up, punching Bazylev in the face again and again. He could feel his hand starting to burn from the intense heat of the barrel.  
All the while, Kelly didn't seem to know what to do. He backed away, letting the fight play out.  
Johner hit Bazylev in the nose for a fourth time and there was a wet crunch. The nose snapped to one side. Bazylev's grip on his weapon loosened and Johner pulled the flame unit away from him, tossing it aside. A layer of Johner's flesh tore off with the weapon. He kicked the man in the chest, sending him tumbling down the stairs away from the other two.  
Bazylev hit the back of his head against a railing. Hard. He rolled over and came to rest face down on the stairs. His head was bleeding but the blood wasn't red.  
It was black.  
Kelly looked down at his friend and shook his head. Johner took a quick look at his burnt hand and retrieved his flame unit off the stairs.  
Bazylev stirred and pushed the bulk of his weight up with both arms. He looked up at the two of them. He looked miserable. Johner took a step towards him, making sure his flame unit wasn't damaged.  
Bazylev got up on his knees. He pointed at Johner. "It was you! Your people. You wanted to come here! Kelly and I would never been here if you hadn't..."  
He trailed off. Johner cocked his head to one side. "If we hadn't what, man? If we hadn't been killed by that piece of shit drug dealer that you set me and my friends up with? Is that what you were gonna say?"  
Bazylev was silent for a moment. Then he grabbed both of his temples and cried out in pain. He lowered his head to the stairs. His cries faded and he was still for a moment. Then he started banging his forehead against the stairs. Black blood splashed out of him with each blow.  
Johner looked at Kelly. The man was shaking his head. A tear fell from his right eye and rolled down his cheek.  
Bazylev got back up on his knees. He looked at his friend. He and Kelly shared a final look. Then Bazylev nodded. He looked at Johner.  
"Do it," he said. "I'm in pain."  
"With pleasure," Johner said.  
As Johner raised his flame unit, Bazylev raised his arms in the air. He closed his eyes.  
Johner pulled the trigger of his flame unit and lit the man up. Bazylev screamed as he burned. His body crumbled into a heap upon the stairs as it blackened and cracked apart.  
Soon, his screams ceased. His body stopped shaking. He was dead.  
Johner let go of the trigger. He leaned the weapon against his shoulder and held it with one hand. He spit on his damaged hand and squinted down at it. It looked okay.  
The two men stayed where they were for a moment, looking at Bazylev's body. It burned for another moment, then went out, smoke rising from it.  
Johner turned to leave, heading up the stairs once again. Kelly shook his head and wiped away another tear. Johner stopped just as he passed the man. He put a hand on Kelly's shoulder.  
Kelly shrugged it away. He turned to regard Johner.  
"I'm sorry," Johner said.  
Kelly held his intense gaze for a moment longer. Then he nodded.  
They proceeded up the stairs together. Something was waiting for them one level up.

"Ripley," Call said.  
Ripley was crouched down, looking at what looked like about seven candles bunched together on the floor against a wall. She frowned. When Call spoke her name, she stood up and joined the other woman.  
Call was standing in front of a mural on the wall. Strange but sophisticated art. Ripley cocked her head to one side as she examined it.  
The mural showed a ship much like the one they were exploring hovering over a large strip of land. The ship was dropping something from a central hole in its base. It looked like a black cloud. Ripley ran her hand along the art. Feeling it somehow made it more real.  
"Ripley," Call repeated.  
Ripley looked at her. Call pointed to the mural and traced a finger down a line in the land that the ship was delivering its no doubt deadly cargo. Ripley narrowed her eyes. "What's that?"  
Call looked at her, eyes wide and concerned. "It's the Great Wall of China."  
Ripley ran her own finger down the line, eventually meeting Call's. They held hands for a brief moment, Ripley's larger fingers interlacing with Call's smaller digits.  
"So this is Earth, then," Ripley said.  
Call nodded. Ripley stayed where she was for a moment, then walked away. She felt that she had to explore every inch of this alien puzzle.  
So far, they hadn't encountered anyone. The derelict was seemingly empty. Ripley didn't like it. Where would they all be? Certainly, some of them would be spread throughout the complex but surely some of them would be here. This was the prize, after all. This ship.  
Ripley approached a door which opened as she got close to it. Inside was a small space, once again covered in candles. She had no idea what it had been before but it was now being used as a kind of altar. A metal container was set upon a pedestal. A soft blanket sat on the floor before it, inviting the observer to kneel.  
Ripley considered for a moment, unsure of herself. Then she knelt before the container, setting her flame unit aside, leaning it against a nearby wall.  
For a moment, she simply stared at the container. It was grey, metal. And something about it called to her. She could feel the contents of the container swirling around in the blackness. It was connected to her somehow. Whoever made this ship made the xenomorph and they must have made whatever was in this container as well. So it stood to reason that she and the contents of the container were linked, even if it was several times removed.  
She raised her hands in supplication. Closed her eyes. She could feel it stronger now, much like she could feel the aliens on the Auriga. Whatever it was that was in the container, it was bad. Real bad.  
Call spoke her name again, this time with considerable alarm: "Ripley!"  
Ripley was up in an instant, grabbing her flame unit. She rushed out of the small, sacred space and into the main corridor once again.  
Call had been overwhelmed by robed figures. Ripley saw two of them on the ground, unconscious from Call's shock pistol, but the android was now swamped by the believers. They had her in their clutches. There were at least twenty of them. Ripley saw an open door past Call where they must have emerged from. A control room of some kind.  
Ripley flicked her flame unit on. She rushed towards the group and didn't hesitate. She lit one of them up with her weapon. The believer's robes were instantly engulfed in flames.  
Ripley turned her weapon - still spouting fire - onto two more of the robed figures. They were engulfed in flames as well. Ripley heard satisfying screams. She smiled.  
The smile turned into a frown as the three burning believers came running towards her. It couldn't be! The sons of bitches were burning alive! And yet they came. The discipline that it took to commit one to a mad, apocalyptic religion was strong, it seemed. They were using their dying moments to attack their killer.  
Ripley took a look at Call, who was again calling her name - "Ripley!" - as she was being dragged away, into the open doorway. Past her, standing upon a large, central structure, was another robed figure. This one wore a mask yet Ripley knew that she was female. A woman. A strong, committed woman. The leader of these mad people.  
Then she was forced to flee, unless she wanted to be burned alive. The corridor was large but not large enough to dodge around three burning men who were determined to kill you.  
Ripley ran. Behind her, the burning men kept pace for a while. Then one dropped to the ground. Then another. Ripley finally turned and watched the third and final man drop dead. She smiled.  
Once again it was too soon to celebrate.  
About a half dozen more believers were chasing her down the corridor, coming up behind their fallen comrades. Ripley sent a burst of fire in their direction and got moving again.  
As she ran by a door, it opened, a figure standing within an umbilical connecting to another ship. "This way!"  
Ripley turned to the man. He was robed, like the others, but his hood was down. His head was shaved, just like hers. He gestured to her urgently. "Come on!"  
Ripley hesitated. She looked at him. Then back at the approaching mob. She frowned and proceeded into the umbilical with the man.  
The man closed the door behind her. He punched a sequence into the control device. "This should buy us some time."  
He turned to her. He was drenched in sweat. He smelled. "We gotta go."  
Ripley nodded. Soon, the two of them were heading down the umbilical towards the connecting ship.  
"Who are you?!" Ripley said as they ran.  
"I used to be one of them," the man said, not bothering to look back. "My name's Clinch."

Kelly and Johner - and Bazylev until very recently - had been checking each floor of the station. Sweeping each deck for possible connected escape pods. So far they had found none.  
They emerged onto the deck above where they had left Bazylev's corpse. It appeared to be a promenade of some kind. Entertainment and food stalls lined the large space. It was rundown and empty, of course, but they had to check it out. Only some of the lights worked. And many of those that did flickered on and off periodically.  
They stayed together. They may not have liked each other at the moment, but it was safer to stick together. To present a unified front.  
They swept the area. There was a movie theater partially hidden behind a few restaurants in a kind of food court. An exit door stood near it. Kelly saw it, turned to Johner.  
"I see it," Johner said.  
"Possibility," Kelly said.  
Johner nodded. They headed towards the theater. Dust wafted up with each footfall they took. It drifted through the air. Johner's nose twitched. He tried to resist but a massive sneeze overtook him a moment later. Kelly jumped.  
"Jesus," he said, "don't do that."  
"Sorry," Johner said.  
Kelly shrugged. They proceeded towards the theater and the exit on the other side of it. They passed through a restaurant on the way there. It was dark, smashed.  
Kelly proceeded through the restaurant, which consisted of a counter set into the wall and tables and chairs sitting outside it. The food was prepared behind the counter, it seemed.  
Johner looked around. He had a bad feeling about this place. "Hold up, man."  
Kelly stopped. He turned around and regarded Johner. "What is it?"  
Johner shook his head. "Something doesn't feel right, man. You feel it? Like someone else is here?"  
Kelly stood still, stiff as a board, his eyes flicking about. After a moment, he shook his head. "I don't feel a thing."  
Johner stood where he was a second longer. Then he shrugged - "Guess it was nothing," he said - and joined Kelly. They proceeded towards the exit past the theater.  
The moment they passed out of the area of the restaurant, Johner frowned. He happened to be looking down and saw footprints in the dust ahead of them. They didn't belong to either him or Kelly and were heading towards and past them. In the direction of the restaurant.  
Johner's eyes widened in alarm. He opened his mouth to shout a warning but it was too late. He and Kelly headed towards the exit fairly close to the wall.  
There was a beeping sound to Johner's immediate right, coming from the wall. He whipped his head around. In the split second before the flash, he saw the object that had been affixed to the wall: it was small and rectangular. His weapon-obsessed mind identified it right away - a flash bomb - and then it detonated.  
Both he and Kelly were blinded by the blast and thrown to the ground. Johner hit the floor back first, the wind knocked out of him. He dropped his flame unit. His sight returned almost at once but it was blurry.  
Immediately, three figures jumped out from behind the counter of the restaurant and rushed towards them. Johner reached for his weapon but one of the figures kicked it away from him. Another did the same with Kelly. The third figure grabbed Johner's flame unit and pointed it at him.  
The man had dark glasses implanted in his eye sockets. He grinned behind the barrel of the weapon.  
"Looks like we got the drop on you two," he said.

If the derelict was shaped like a wishbone, then Orrery's ship was more like a rib. Its arch was less pronounced. It was also much smaller, designed for a single pilot and little else.  
Orrery's mission was simple: retrieve the derelict if possible; if not, destroy it. He emerged from the warp tunnel only a few kilometers away from the Aissa. The complex and the Dyson Ring beyond it.  
Orrery did a quick scan of the Aissa and decided it was a threat: it had many weapons, both as cargo and mounted on the exterior of the ship. He detected no life signs but it was best to take no chances.  
He activated his own weapons and aimed them at the Aissa as he approached it. After only a moment, he was locked onto the ship and he fired. A massive bolt of energy shot from his vessel and cracked into the Aissa. There was a fantastic explosion as the ship was utterly destroyed before the Void sucked all of that fiery energy back into a pinpoint.  
Orrery took no notice of the beautiful, destructive event. He continued towards the complex.  
And the derelict.


	10. X

Not all the believers were as dedicated as those that continued fighting after Ripley set them on fire. There were those, like Royce, who joined the cult to escape the galaxy entirely.  
After he joined and they built and settled into the complex, Royce had volunteered for this job. He sat at the very top of the old space station in a defense post: a small dome they had converted into a gun turret. It was armed with two phased plasma cannons and looked out out into space.  
Up here, away from not only the greater part of the galaxy but largely away from the other believers as well, he felt at home. It was what he preferred. To be away from everyone.  
It was a cushy job. Nothing ever seemed to happen. They had small ships docking with Power Array 5 from time to time and, from time to time, he would be ordered to shoot them down. But often this wasn't the case. Often they would just let them go. And Royce was free to contemplate the higher states of being, do drugs and sleep.  
He had dozed off in the gunner chair a few hours ago, head leaning against the support straps. There was a considerable amount of drool soaking the strap.  
An explosion snapped him awake. He didn't hear it but the brilliant flash of light shocked his system, brought him around. His eyes popped open and he saw a massive ship being disintegrated. He didn't even see the ship approach; he had been asleep when the Aissa originally settled into orbit.  
And now it was gone. Destroyed. Its shock wave rocked the station. He shook himself to consciousness and made a quick scan. Another ship was closing in fast: small, compact, deadly. It most certainly had destroyed the larger ship.  
He could see it. Flying through the newly-created debris field, headed towards the complex.  
Royce took careful aim with the plasma cannons and fired. His first shots missed but they were close.  
The small ship alerted course and came about in his direction. Royce was momentarily struck by it. It was so much like the alien ship. The derelict. Certainly different in many ways but definitely related.  
He snapped out of it and fired again. This time his shots found their target. They hit the small ship straight on.  
The ship immediately began to fly out of control. It got off a shot of its own but it went wide, harmlessly shooting above the gunner station.  
But there was another problem. The small ship was heading straight towards him. It was only a short few kilometers away and closing in. Fast.  
Royce unbuckled one strap - the left - and made for the second. The right strap caught. Panic began to overtake him and he pulled and pulled on the strap. It wouldn't budge.  
He tried to get out of the gunner chair without unbuckling the right strap. He was able to halfway accomplish this. Which wasn't enough.  
The small ship was racing towards him, spinning out of control. Royce pulled as hard as he could, trying to force himself out of the chair. He heard a snap in his right shoulder and felt an intense burst of pain. His shoulder slipped out of place and he was able to wriggle free.  
He shrugged himself out of the chair, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. He fiddled with the hatch in the floor, which led to an airlock and, beyond that, safety.  
Instinctively, he tried to reach out for it with his right hand. When nothing happened, he looked up at the approaching ship.  
And screamed.  
The small, alien craft smashed into the defense post. Royce was instantly blown apart.

The explosion of the Aissa rocked the space station. Everyone on the promenade felt it. They were jostled about.  
Slice - who had Johner's flame unit trained on the man himself - looked off to one side. Johner seized the opportunity. He kicked the man in the groin. The idiot had taken an obvious stance, legs apart, practically begging to be kicked in the balls.  
Slice turned to jelly. His legs jiggled and his grip on the weapon slipped. Johner grabbed the flame unit and used it to bash the man in the face with the butt of it.  
Johner regained control of his weapon and turned it on the other two attackers. Kelly was already moving. He swept out with his feet and knocked the woman off balance with a kick to a shin.  
The smaller man in the group had Kelly's shock rifle but when Johner pointed his flame unit on him and the woman, he slowly put the rifle down and held his hands up. Johner smiled.  
Johner took a few steps towards them, stomping on Slice's hand as he approached. "Give me a reason not to kill you."  
The smaller man - Reve - turned to the woman - Hawke - and then looked back at Johner. "Because we didn't kill you?"  
Johner smirked. "I don't think you would've been able to do that, pal."  
Kelly got on his feet. A small device on his belt was beeping. He grabbed it, turned it on and shook his head when he read its alert.  
Johner shot him a look. "What?"  
"My ship's been destroyed," he said. "Un-fucking-believable. Who'd have the power to do that?" He turned on Reve, grabbed him by his shirt. "Was it one of your people?"  
"My people?" Reve said. "The fuck you talking about, man? I don't have any people. Just me and Hawke. The guy pissing his pants on the floor is Slice. He's not one of my people, either."  
Kelly looked at the man on the floor. He shook his head again. He looked back at Reve. "Was that your flash bomb?"  
Reve looked down at his shoes. "Yeah. That was me."  
"Let me kill this fucking guy, man," Johner said.  
A second explosion rocked the station. This one was smaller but it was closer. Above them. Everyone looked up in alarm.  
"That was close," Johner said.  
Kelly nodded. Hawke shared a look with Reve. The smaller man looked back at Kelly a moment later.  
Kelly held his gaze with Reve, forcing the man to look up. He studied him for a moment. "He's harmless." He shot a glance at Slice again. "That one, too." Then he turned his gaze on Hawke. "Her? I'm not so sure about her."  
Hawke flashed a Mona Lisa smile. Kelly looked her up and down.  
Johner sighed. "We don't have time for this shit. If we're not gonna kill em, let's get going."  
Kelly nodded. He let go of Reve and pushed him away. Reve stumbled back a few steps, regained his balance. After Johner established that the trio didn't have any other weapons, they got moving again.  
The trio tagged along behind them. Hawke was in the lead. "If your ship is destroyed, we have a ship. We could get you out of here."  
Johner frowned at her strange accent. Kelly didn't seem bothered by it, however.  
"We have another ship," he said. "And, at this point, it's a rescue mission."  
Slice cradled his groin as they walked towards the exit door. "So you're not here to steal something?"  
"Steal?" Kelly said. "I would never."  
Johner laughed. "We were gonna strip the place bare but we've got more pressing concerns. Namely, some fucking monsters on the loose and two missing people. My friends. And I don't got a lot of those, so I'm not losing these two."  
"Monsters?" Reve said.  
"Can we help?" Hawke asked.  
Kelly shook his head. "Unless you know about an escape pod that heads straight towards the alien ship at the center of this complex, I don't see how."  
Hawke stopped. "I've seen one."  
Everyone else stopped. Kelly and Johner turned towards her.  
Johner approached her, a murderous look on his face. "Tell us."  
Hawke cocked her head to one side. "What's it worth to you."  
Johner pressed the barrel of his flame unit to her stomach. "Your life."  
"Hey, steady," Reve said.  
"All I ask is that if we do find anything," Hawke said. "Anything of value, it's ours. Mine and Reve's."  
"And me?" Slice asked.  
Hawke ignored him. "That's all."  
Johner scoffed. Kelly studied her. "You got a deal."  
Johner shook his head. "Bad move, man. Like I said, we don't have time for this."  
"I can take you right to it," Hawke insisted. "We took a similar pod to get here. The one I saw was pointed right in the direction of that strange ship. It's in the transit center. A few decks up."  
Kelly nodded. Gestured to the exit. "After you, my dear."  
Hawke smiled. She led the way, heading to the exit and up a flight of stairs. The others followed a moment later.

Vriess moved faster when was by himself. And in zero G. He made good time returning to the Betty. The path from the umbilical and into the loading bay took him a bit longer, though, as he had to crawl to his chair. It had been left near the loading bay door - just inside it - but it seemed like a thousand kilometers away to Vriess.  
But he had managed it and was now at one of the pilot seats. They had modified his chair to replace one of the pilot seats when necessary. The pilot seat would fold down, into the infrastructure and his chair would lock into place. It was a neat set-up.  
He had just clicked it into place when the Aissa exploded. He watched it happen, awestruck and horrified. The Aissa was utterly annihilated. What could have done something like that?  
The answer shocked Vriess. A small craft came shooting out of the ruins of the massive ship, heading towards the complex. A moment later, it engaged with the station, was hit by a blast from the gun turret and went careening into the top of the station.  
Vriess had never seen anything like it. For a moment, he didn't know what to do. How to proceed.  
Then he made up his mind and remotely closed the airlock doors on both sides of the umbilical and got the Betty moving. He decided that he needed to be mobile to save his friends, if necessary. He shook his head in disbelief.  
All bets were off.

Call was led to a tall, robed, masked woman. She was forced to her knees before her. This central room had a large control deck, round and biomechanical, like everything else on this ship. It was a raised section, the focus of the room. One half of the room was shrouded in darkness, its candles seemingly dead.  
Mother Oubliette stood above her on the raised area. She stepped towards the woman. She knelt down and took Call's chin in her gloved hands.  
Call reeled back, a sour look on her face. She couldn't move far. She was held on three sides by believers.  
Mother Oubliette let go of the woman and stood up. She seemed to size Call up. Nodded. She turned her attention to the believers. "Leave us."  
There was a moment of protestation but not much. These people knew how to follow orders and soon, Call was alone with their leader. The door closed behind the last departing believer. She was trapped in here with this strange woman.  
"You may stand," the woman said.  
Slowly, Call stood up. She rubbed her right shoulder, where she had been roughly handled by one of the believers.  
The woman stepped down from the raised section. "Did they hurt you?"  
Call shook her head. The woman nodded.  
"I am Mother Oubliette," she said.  
Call sighed. "Call."  
Mother Oubliette circled her, looking her up and down. "Call. A simple name. A cry for help, perhaps?"  
Call frowned. "Not that I know of."  
Mother Oubliette shook her head. "No, I can feel your longing."  
"What can you feel?" Call said.  
"You long for another."  
Call looked away from the other woman. Mother Oubliette came to a stop directly in front of Call. Once again she reached out for the woman's chin.  
"A woman," she said.  
Call looked up suddenly. She was silent.  
"The one who was fighting for you," Mother Oubliette said. "The one who left you in the end."  
"Ripley didn't leave me," Call said. "She'll be back. Mark my words."  
"So it was Ripley," Mother Oubliette said. "I thought it was her. But how can that be?"  
Call gaped at the woman, floored by her knowledge. But she was silent. She wasn't going to let anything else slip.  
Mother Oubliette drifted away from Call. She walked around the raised section of the room until she was opposite Call. "I've read all the banned histories. Seen holos. I know about Ripley. How she died fighting the creations of the Engineers hundreds of years ago. Yes, I know. And many others. I've read Dr. Elizabeth Shaw's reports. In fact, she recorded them in a ship much like this one. And it was accessible right here. At this console. Isn't that incredible?"  
Call remained silent. Mother Oubliette nodded.  
"You don't want to speak," she said. "I understand. But I want to talk. It's been sometime since I could talk to someone freely. Someone with knowledge of such things."  
"Of what things?" Call asked.  
Mother Oubliette started to circle back around to Call. "Of the aliens. Of this ship. Of the Engineer. Of God."  
"God?" Call said.  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "Yes, God. They created us. All of us."  
She grabbed Call by the shoulders and held her for a moment before letting her go and walking towards one of the walls. There was a large mural etched into the wall. She swept a hand towards it.  
The mural depicted a tall, hairless, humanoid figure standing before a massive waterfall. A robe, much like the kind that the believers wore themselves, was cast to the ground nearby. The world about it was primordial.  
"This is when they created us," Mother Oubliette said. "This is Earth. They encoded their own DNA into the pillars of the Earth. Isn't that extraordinary?"  
Call took a step towards the mural. She couldn't help herself.  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "You're curious, aren't you?"  
Call said nothing. The other woman left this mural and traced a path around the outside of the room. She stopped in front of another one. This one depicted a great war. Primitive - swords and spears, a great fortress under attack - but clearly human.  
"They were disappointed in us," Mother Oubliette explained. "We were war-like, primitive. They decided that we were a failed experiment. And almost twenty-five hundred years ago, they decided to eradicate us."  
Call shot the other woman an alarmed look. Mother Oubliette nodded.  
"Yes," she said. "They failed, of course. Killed by their own creation. A pathogen. Capable of changing one's DNA, turning it against the host. But it turned on them. This was all documented by our Dr. Shaw. After that, they must have left us alone for some time."  
She walked back into the center of the room and stepped up onto the raised section. She swept her arms about. "This ship was their second attempt. They must have become interested in us again. We were developing. Evolving. They didn't engineer us that way. But that's where we went. Did you know that it was our own Dr. Shaw who called them Engineers? No, how could you?" She paused as she studied Call's face, searching for a reaction. When there was none, she continued. "Our propensity for war was still with us. We could become a threat, not just to ourselves but to the very galaxy. Yes, one day, perhaps."  
"But this one failed, too," Call said.  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "Once again, they failed."  
"Did the same thing happen?" Call asked.  
The other woman shook her head. "No. It was a disease. A simple disease."  
Call was silent once again. Mother Oubliette did a little turn on the raised section of the room.  
"The plan this time," she explained, "was slightly more dramatic."  
She reached into her robes and produced what looked like a wind instrument. She turned away from Call, lifted her mask and blew into the device. Soon, a holographic display filled the raised section of the room. Mother Oubliette stood within it. She put down the mask, put away the instrument and turned back to Call.  
"They intended to change us into a weapon that would not only wipe us all out but also could be used as a weapon against their enemies," she said.  
"Enemies?" Call said.  
Mother Oubliette nodded and proceeded to a console around the edge of the raised section. "They have many enemies."  
She activated a panel in the console and manipulated a small round control device with her gloved hands. The blue holo display illustrated a horrible creature. Call winced just looking at it. It was comprised of a ball of flesh out of which six tentacles - much like the tail of the xenomorph - extended. The ball of flesh was fronted by a hideous, screaming skull. Human.  
"The blasphemer," Mother Oubliette explained. "That's what I call them. I have learned some of the language of the Engineers but much of it is still shrouded to me. I don't know what they called them."  
"Blasphemer," Call repeated.  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "It changes the DNA of a human being. Changes the bone of our skulls to metal. Liquefies the rest of the bones and organs. We bloat, expand until we burst, becoming these things. After that, chaos."  
"That's horrible," Call said.  
"But necessary," Mother Oubliette insisted. She approached Call. "We are a cancer. A disease. We need to be wiped from the face of the galaxy. That much I've learned in my many, long years."  
Slowly, she backed away from Call, retreating to the console. She manipulated the control device again and the holo display changed. Now it displayed the huge, cross-shaped vessel that Call had spotted from space. Instinctively, Call crossed herself. It was clear that Mother Oubliette noticed this gesture but she didn't comment on it.  
"This is where I keep them," she explained. "The Holy Place. They are entombed there. Waiting for the right time to be unleashed upon the galaxy. When the Engineers tell me that the time is right, I will unleash them."  
Call shook his head. "You're insane. Those things can't be let loose. We'll stop them. I'll stop them!"  
Mother Oubliette shook her head slowly. "There's nothing you can do about it. You're my prisoner. And your friends will soon meet their end at the hands of my believers."  
"Why are you telling me all this?" Call said.  
Mother Oubliette stepped away from the console and approached Call once again. She cocked her head to one side. That implacable mask. "Isn't it obvious?"  
Call shook her head again. "Not to me."  
Mother Oubliette chuckled. "Because you're not real. I knew right away. You're a creation. You don't matter."  
Call found herself inexplicably upset with this. She scoffed, tried to laugh it off, but it hurt. It hurt. And it shouldn't have.  
This distress must have been evident on her face. Mother Oubliette grabbed her by the shoulders once again, gentler this time. "But none of us matter, do we? We're all creations." She let go of Call and walked away. "But there are levels of importance, even among the refuse, like us. You are at the bottom, I'm afraid."  
Call shoved her distress deep inside and concentrated on the anger. She directed it towards Mother Oubliette, flashing her a hard, mean face. Mother Oubliette only chuckled. Call decided to change the subject. "This disease. What was it? What killed them? These Engineers."  
Mother Oubliette looked uncomfortable. Even underneath the mask. She approached Call once again. "It was me."  
Call narrowed her eyes. "You?"  
"Yes," Mother Oubliette said. "I was part of their plan, you see. I was snatched from Earth long ago. My name is no mistake, you see. I was born in an oubliette. Spain, 1698."  
Call shook her head. "What?"  
Mother Oubliette nodded. She proceeded to the darkened side of the room, grabbing a candle on her way. The light revealed another mural that Call hadn't been able to see in the dark. It illustrated a woman, arms and legs spread, like Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. "My mother was a notorious pirate. She was imprisoned for her crimes. Yes, even as she plead her belly. I was eventually let out. Became a pirate myself. Lady Oubliette. I was quite known in my time. Though I seem to have been lost to history. I was abducted by the Engineers in 1719. Off the coast of America. The South. They needed a 'new human.' An updated model, as it were. I was held on this ship for years. I was probed, studied, as they developed the pathogen. They didn't think the minor disease I carried would affect them as much as it did."  
Slowly, she took off her mask. Call gasped as the woman's face was revealed. Her nose was mostly gone, eaten away. Much of her left cheek, as well. Her top lip was a quarter gone. Her eyes, though, were a brilliant, bright green.  
"It seems," she said, "that they weren't ready for leprosy. Had never encountered it before. They were all ready to go. Had developed the pathogen, refined it. All right here on this ship. Remarkable. Then they died. All of them."  
Mother Oubliette walked away from the mural. It fell into darkness once again. She approached Call. "I had learned enough about their machines, their ways, by then. Enough to work the controls, at least. I hid the ship from detection and went into hibernation. A few hundred years seemed appropriate. I picked a year in the future, almost at random. I awoke nine years ago. The Engineers were fossils by then. When we came here, we sent them into the white dwarf. Gave them a proper send-off."  
She circled around Call, seeming to study the android. "But long before all that, I contemplated what to do. Months went by. I subsisted on the liquid gruel that they fed me. Until it ran out. I had to leave then, to find food. It was then I knew my purpose. To destroy. Everything. I picked up followers. Many. No longer a lady, then. A mother."  
She clicked her mask back in place. "I studied. Sought out every history I could. The sciences. All the terrible wonders of this future. Learned what humans had accomplished while I was asleep. I discovered that we hadn't gotten any better. But I learned a lot. When I had enough believers around me, we decided on this place. We found the Dyson Ring and built the complex around Power Array 5. All ours."  
Call stared at the woman. "All this. All this just because you had a bad childhood? The human race deserves to die because you had it rough? We've all had it rough! All of us!"  
Mother Oubliette shook her head. "I am fulfilling what our creators wanted of us. You wouldn't understand. You're just a thing. A concept. An automaton. You just parrot what you've been programmed to do. When you crossed yourself... that was programmed, wasn't it?"  
Call looked away. Mother Oubliette nodded. "Yes, it was, wasn't it? You're nothing. And you're going to watch as I kill your friends. And then I'm going to put you in stasis and only revive you when I'm about to destroy the disease of humanity. Wipe it from the cosmos."  
Call didn't have anything to say to that. She just looked at the other woman, hoping that her gaze was enough. Then she shook her head and spoke. "How many of them are there? The blasphemers?"  
Mother Oubliette didn't hesitate with her answer. "Thousands."

Orrery's ship was damaged - smashed - but it wasn't totally destroyed. It was balanced right on top of the obliterated gun turret at the top of the space station. Its biomechanical surface morphed and created a seal around the door that Royce had been trying to open before he had been killed. The seal locked into place, pushing out the vacuum.  
Inside the craft, Orrery stirred, recovered from the crash and got out of the pilot's chair. He accessed a panel and scanned the ship. It was still working but it would never fly again.  
So, this was it, then. If he couldn't get the derelict moving again, then he would be dying with it. He contemplated this for a moment - no more than a second went by - before proceeding.  
He retrieved his weapons. One of them was a circular, razor-sharp handheld killer. The other was an extendable spear, sharp at both ends. Both weapons had been appropriated from a hunter race that the Engineers had encountered, far in the past.  
He proceeded into the seal and ripped open the trap door of the gun turret. He climbed down the ladder and was in the space station.  
If anyone was still in the station with him, they wouldn't be alive for long.


	11. XI

Ripley leaned in a doorway, eyes scanning the interior of the room with mild curiosity and maximum alertness. Clinch was inside the room, frantically searching through a pile of what looked liked rags and discarded robes in a corner.  
To Ripley, the room looked much like the small altar she had encountered on the alien ship. This room was bigger, certainly, and it had a simple bed roll and what appeared to be a chamber pot, but it was quite similar. Candles, a small place of worship, the smell of incense.  
"Are you a believer, Clinch?" Ripley asked.  
Clinch didn't look up at her. He was enraptured by his search. "In a way."  
"But..." Ripley prompted him.  
"But I don't like the way they're doing things," Clinch explained.  
Ripley nodded - not that he could see - and walked into the room. She held onto her flame unit, just in case, as she looked about the room. Near the spot where Clinch was searching, Ripley came upon a stack of what looked like clay bricks.  
She smiled and tapped the stack with the barrel of her flame unit. Clinch whirled around to regard her. He grabbed the barrel of her flame unit and pushed it away from the stack. "Don't touch those!"  
"Explosives," Ripley said. "Looks like you really don't like the way they're doing things."  
Clinch paused for a moment, looking up at her. Then he nodded. "Yes." He returned to searching. Ripley could be extremely quiet and stealthy when she wanted to be. With quick reflexes and almost no sound at all, she snatched one brick of explosives from the stack and hid it in an inner pocket of her jacket. Clinch was oblivious.  
Ripley leaned back in the doorway. "I hope you have a plan that I like. Because I have to rescue my friend."  
"I have friends of my own," Clinch said.  
Ripley raised her eyebrows. "Do you?"  
Clinch nodded, still looking through the pile. "Yes. They're locked away. You and I are going to free them. They'll help."  
Ripley cocked her head to one side. "You're so sure about my cooperation, aren't you?"  
Clinch shrugged. "What choice do you have?"  
Ripley nodded. "I suppose you're right. I could just kill you, of course. Make up my own plan."  
Clinch shook his head. "You wouldn't do that. You're Ellen Ripley. You're here to stop an alien threat. And save lives. I don't know how you're here, after hundreds of years, but I know you. You're part of the required reading."  
Ripley walked into the room until she was close enough to stick the barrel of her flame unit against the back of his neck. Clinch froze.  
"You've got the wrong girl," Ripley said. "Ellen Ripley's dead. I'm Ripley 8. And your stuck with me."  
Clinch slowly raised his arms. "Ripley 8? What does that mean?"  
"It means I'm a clone," Ripley said.  
Sweat dripped down Clinch's neck, running over the barrel of the flame unit. "But you have her memories. Ripley's."  
"I do," Ripley said. "Most of them."  
"So you're her," Clinch insisted.  
Ripley considered it. Shook her head. "I wouldn't say that."  
"Why not?" Clinch asked.  
"A lady isn't the sum of her memories. She's defined by her actions."  
They were both silent for a moment. Clinch kept his hands up. "So this is it, then? If I'm going to die, I'd like to pray first."  
Ripley moved the flame unit away from Clinch. He relaxed.  
"I'm not going to kill you," Ripley said. "Put your hands down."  
He did. Returned to searching through the pile. "I think I found it, anyway. Yes!" He produced a small device aloft in triumph. Kissed it.  
"What is that?" Ripley asked.  
Clinch looked at it reverently. "It's a key." He stood up and pushed past her, out into the hallway of the ship they had escaped into. She followed him into the main corridor. Looked behind her to see if the other believers had broken in yet and were after them. She didn't see anything.  
"Where are we going?" she shouted after him.  
"To free my friends!" Clinch said.  
They passed into a long corridor lined on both sides with hard, clear plastic; hard enough for space ships. The corridor offered a magnificent view of the complex on one side and the white dwarf on the other.  
Clinch pointed to the next connecting space ship over. It was a vast, cross-shaped ship, at least five kilometers high. "They're in there! I can't believe it's time."  
"This better work," Ripley said and followed him towards the Holy Place.

"You will lie down here," Mother Oubliette said.  
Several believers had joined them in the control room. They had been working on something for a few minutes. Now their leader had led Call there.  
Call looked at her then at the spot she was indicating. It was on the floor near a console that the believers had opened up, jury-rigged. Several wires were hanging out of the console. The wires looked like veins, intestines. They all had a fleshy quality. The believers had laid out a simple bedroll near the console.  
Call knew what they wanted of her. She shook her head. "Uh-uh. No way."  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "You will patch into the ship."  
"How do you know that I'll even be compatible?" Call insisted.  
Mother Oubliette shrugged. "I don't. But I'm willing to give it a try."  
"You're insane," Call said. "I could be fried!"  
"Navigation doesn't work," Mother Oubliette said. "I've been able to access and repair most systems but there's something wrong with navigation. Something inside. You will access it manually and see what the problem is."  
Call shook her head again. "There's nothing you could say to me that would make me do that."  
Mother Oubliette was silent. She circled the control center and brought up a blue holo display in the center of the raised section. It showed a ship in a loose orbit around the greater complex. Call recognized it at once. The Betty.  
"This is your ship," Mother Oubliette said, "isn't it?" Call said nothing but the other woman nodded. "Yes, it is, I can tell by your face. I have a gunner stationed at the top of the abandoned space station in the complex. If you do not comply with my wishes, I will have him destroy your ship."  
Call looked at her intensely. "You think we won't fight back?"  
Mother Oubliette shrugged once again. "You can try. But you won't see this coming. Most ships don't even notice it's there before they're blown out of the stars."  
Call looked away. She said nothing.  
"So we understand each other?" Mother Oubliette asked. "You do this for me and I don't destroy your ship. You can all go home. Your job here will be done."  
Call nodded. What choice did she have?  
"Good," Mother Oubliette said. "Come."  
She indicated the simple bed roll in front of the console. Reluctantly, Call approached. She sat down on the bed roll. Mother Oubliette sat down beside her, on the hard floor, legs folded.  
Call looked at the wires hanging out of the console. They were loathsome. Flesh and metal, like everything else on the ship. She could see that the believers had stripped one of the wires. It dripped black blood. That was obviously the one.  
Her suspicions were confirmed when Mother Oubliette reached across her and grabbed that wire. She looked at Call. "Your arm, please."  
Call gave her the worst look she could imagine and held out her arm. She pulled the plug disguised as a mole out, exposing her patch port. She looked away as Mother Oubliette grabbed her arm with one hand and inserted the wire with the other.  
It hurt. She could feel its utter wrongness just by its mere touch. She winced and closed her eyes.  
She kept her eyes closed as she entered the liquid highways of the ship. Her mind stayed where it was but her consciousness raced down wires that flowed like blood through veins. She was looking for its mind, the place where it stored information and processed all the various systems.  
It was a horrible ordeal for her. Whenever she was inside a system, she always felt like she was going to lose herself.  
In a black, putrid area of the the ship's mind - the vast blackness stretching out forever in all directions, the floor covered in dense, black liquid - she found a place that, to her at least, looked like a wall made out of xenomorph bodies. It undulated, twitched, moved like ancient drapery in a haunted house.  
She had to pass through this wall to get to the ship's mind. She didn't want to but she had to. Had no choice in the matter.  
She extended a shaking, not-really-there-at-all, hand towards the wall. One of the thing's heads moved and took a bite in her direction. Call snatched her hand back.  
It wasn't real. It was just her own mind interfacing with the computer brain of the ship. Melding together. Becoming confused. She was just interacting with code. Highly advanced, baffling code, but code nonetheless.  
Call reached out again. Her hand was still shaking but she held firm this time. There was a horrid squelching sound as her hand passed through the xenomorph wall. The rest of her body followed.  
On the other side, covered in slime and saliva, she found what she was looking for. All the systems were laid out in front of her. She could see navigation and headed towards it.  
Then something else caught her attention. She looked over at it and smiled.  
Maybe there was something she could do after all.

"What's wrong with this piece of shit?" Johner said.  
He was at a terminal in the transit center of the space station. It was set into the wall much like an old phone booth. It must be one of the ways in which the denizens of the complex communicated with each other. So why wasn't the fucking thing working?  
Johner finally slammed a palm against the side of the old piece of junk and it flashed to life. A simple green display booted up.  
Johner smiled. He fiddled with the interface for a moment until he found the Betty's signal. He tried to send a message in its direction but he wasn't sure that it would make it. Certainly the Betty couldn't answer back. But perhaps Vriess, the smart fucker, could snatch it out of the air.  
"Hey, little buddy," he recorded into the message. "If you get this, try to get a pinpoint on our signals. We lost Bazylev but picked up a few strays along the way. We're headed to the alien ship to grab Call and Rip. Fucking lovebirds. Anyway, we may need a quick extraction. And I mean real quick. Just keep an eye on us. All I'm saying."  
From deeper into the large transit center came the echoing voice of the woman; Hawke was her name. "Hey, big ape man! It's this way!"  
"Gotta go," Johner said and ended the recording and sent it towards the Betty.  
He shook his head, shut the terminal down. He started towards the others.  
The faded green of the old transit center was all around him. Above him were vast, metal catwalks that seemed to stretch up into infinity. He hardly noticed. His mind was focused on their destination. This escape pod on a pre-set path that Hawke had promised.  
This better not be some kind of set-up, Johner reflected. Or else it would be all of their heads.  
Hawke was waiting for him. The others bunched up together around the outer edge of the station. There were many old and disused transit pods on either side of the station. They all looked the same to Johner but Hawke insisted that there was another one up ahead. A different one.  
"Sightseeing, my big man?" Hawke said.  
Was she flirting with him? Johner frowned. I mean, he could understand: he was an attractive man. One of her cohorts - the little one, Reve - didn't looked pleased. That was a good sign. He smiled. "Taking a leak."  
Hawke nodded slowly. "Sure you were."  
"So where's this magical escape pod you promised us?" Johner said.  
Hawke smiled back. She walked to the other side of the station. Reve and Slice followed her. Kelly and Johner stayed where they were, just to be safe. Hawke pointed to the end of the transit station, which was further down. "There."  
Johner looked where she indicated. Narrowed his eyes. At the end of the row - on either side - were doors to pods that definitely looked different than the others. They looked as if they had been altered for a specific purpose.  
Like escape pods on a pre-set course. Johner raised his eyebrows. "Well I'll be fucked."  
Hawke looked mischievous. "Play your cards right."  
"Hey," Reve said, none too pleased.  
Hawke shot him a look. "I'm just playing with him, dear. You know I only have eyes for you."  
To Johner, she didn't sound all that convincing. He was beginning to like this deceptive lady. He nodded. "Well, let's go, then."  
Hawke started to nod but stopped mid-nod. Everyone froze. At that moment, someone jumped from a flight above them, among the metal catwalks that criss-crossed the room. His landing was perfect. Strong. He was almost three meters tall and deadly.  
And not human.  
He was human-like. His features were close but he was dead white, hairless. His clothes - if one could call them that - seemed to be part of his body, disappearing into his neck. He held what looked like a spear in one hand and a circle of metal larger than his hand in the other.  
He spared no hesitation. He turned towards the group of three huddled together on the other side of the transit center. He studied them for a brief moment, then threw the metal circle at them.  
The circular blade - for that was what it was - flew towards Hawke, Reve and Slice. As it approached, Hawke dropped to the ground. Reve followed right after her.  
Slice wasn't so fast.  
He still seemed locked in place. Confused about what was going on. His mouth was open with a question on his lips.  
The blade caught him right in the open mouth, decapitating him instantly. The blade continued through the air. His head spun on the stump where his mouth was for a moment. Then it spun off, dropping to the ground, leaving only his bottom jaw open and flailing, bloody tongue where his head had once been. His body teetered on its feet for a moment, a fountain of blood spraying from the wound: the last few, desperate pumps of his heart trying to send blood to his brain, which simply wasn't there anymore. Rave and Hawke were splattered with blood. Slice's body fell to the ground in a heap, twitching but decidedly dead.  
Like a boomerang, the circular blade came flying back towards its owner. Reve and Hawke took the opportunity to run towards the escape pod.  
Johner turned his flame unit onto the hunter. He screamed and lit the man up. The hunter winced at the burning pain but still caught the blade out of the air. He extended the spear in his other hand and wound up to throw it at Johner.  
Johner waited until the last moment - waited until the weapon was flying towards him midair - before whirling out of the way. He breathed a sigh of relief but kept his own weapon firing, kept it burning.  
Kelly attacked. He fired shot after shot of powerful electrical energy blasts at the hunter. They barely seemed to have any effect.  
The hunter's spear drove itself into the floor behind Johner, sticking in at a forty-five degree angle. The big adversary threw his blade out towards Johner.  
It was an incredibly quick move and Johner wasn't ready for it. He dropped but his huge frame was just far too tall. He wasn't going to make it. It sailed through the air at him.  
With some effort, his whipped his head to one side, resting his right ear on his shoulder. The blade sailed by him, neatly slicing his left ear in half, sending the lobe to the ground.  
Pain surged through his body. He screamed again, this time in agony. His grit his teeth and kept firing.  
The hunter was focused on him. Intent on killing him. As the blade started to swing around and head back towards the hunter, Johner was ready for it. He let go of the trigger of his weapon and rolled out of the way.  
The hunter caught the blade. He was on fire, his face burning to a crisp black, but still he came. It was terrifying.  
Then something hit him in the back of the head and exploded. It was a bright, hard flash. It instantly knocked the hunter to the ground but it also put the fire out. Johner saw Reve behind the fallen adversary. He must have used the last of his flash bombs and thrown it at Slice's killer.  
The hunter was hurt but he wasn't dead. Not by a long shot.  
Johner and Kelly ran to meet the other two and they both dashed into the escape pod that Hawke had indicated earlier. There was a brief moment of panic as the door wouldn't close. Johner could see the hunter get up. Could see him throw his blade once again.  
It came sailing towards them. At the last possible moment, the airlock and the inner doors closed at the same time, sealing them inside.  
The escape pod detached itself from its dock and started on its journey. It was cramped with all four of them inside but it was better than staying in the transit center with a relentless killer after them. Johner looked up at digital readout counting down from sixteen minutes.  
Then he turned to the rest of them, shaking his head. He held his bleeding, half-gone ear in one hand. "Who the fuck was that guy?!"  
The rest of them didn't answer. Couldn't answer.  
They proceeded towards their destination in ignorance.

Ripley and Clinch passed through the umbilical and into the next ship. The Holy Place.  
It was made of an old metal. Bronze in color and rusted. The umbilical ended in what looked like a vestibule. It was large. Expansive. Ripley looked about. She smirked. They didn't build them like this anymore. It was like a grand church.  
Several meters ahead of them, just through the vestibule, was a large, metal door. A huge cross was set into the door, cut down the middle by the seam.  
Clinch approached the door and fell to his knees. He produced the small device that he had retrieved from his room and held it in one hand. He looked over his shoulder at Ripley. "Prepare yourself."  
Ripley frowned. "For what?"  
Clinch shook his head. "For everything." He pointed the device at the door and activated it.  
Nothing happened.  
Clinch clicked it again. And, again, nothing.  
Frustrated, he threw the device aside. He shuffled around to face Ripley, still on his knees. He shook his head. "Mother of monsters. Queen of destruction. I didn't think I'd have to do this."  
Ripley raised her flame unit. She didn't like where this was going. Clinch tore open his robes. Ripley gasped.  
He had strapped three of the explosives from his room to his chest. Sweat ran down his body. His eyes clouded over with tears. "I should have been killed by them." He shook his sleeve and a wired device slipped out of it and into his hand. Arms raised in a V. Ripley was reminded of Christie and his extendable pistols.  
She pulled the trigger of her flame unit, setting the man alight. He went up instantly.  
He did not scream. Did not let go of the device in his hand. Ripley could see his eyes clearly through the flames. He meant to do it.  
A true believer.  
She turned and ran. She was halfway down the umbilical when the explosives went off. Clinch was instantly evaporated. The door behind him as well.  
They cracked open like an egg. There was a great inrush of air. Ripley was thrown to the floor, the wind knocked out of her.  
She looked up, waiting to see if the umbilical was going to rupture and send her careening out into the Void. But it didn't happen. It looked like it was going to hold.  
She turned over, wincing in pain, to observe the vestibule and the door beyond it. It was lying open. There came an echoing scream from the ruptured door. But she could see only blackness through there.  
Then there was something.  
Something that looked like a human skull peering out of the darkness. Yes, a human skull, but metal. Its mouth was open and it was screaming. Six tail/tentacles came feeling around the edge of the open doorway as the blasphemer came striding out into the vestibule.  
Behind it, Ripley could see many more skulls peering out of the darkness. Dozens and dozens of them.  
She didn't wait. Just turned and ran back towards the alien ship.  
Out of the frying pan. Into the fire.


	12. XII

Carefully, Orrery retrieved his spear out of the tiled floor. Its barbed end uprooted several tiles. They dropped clattering to the floor.  
The large Engineer hunter was hurt. Bad. Much of his face was now blackened, the skin burned away. But he let his instincts take over. Let his mission take priority.  
He strapped his seeking blade to his side and clipped his spear to his back. It hurt to do so - his joints ached - but that only fueled his rage, his desire to see this mission through to its end.  
The escape pod that the prey had fled into was gone, of course. On some kind of pre-set course, as far as Orrery could tell. He crossed the transit center to the other side, where another pre-set escape pod waited.  
But Orrery was fairly certain that this pod wouldn't be headed towards the derelict. No, it was set for another part of the complex. The power array, most likely. Perhaps he could re-wire it.  
He approached the pod. He had to duck into the small space. He got down on his knees and examined every piece of technology he could find in the pod.  
The technology of his people was far in advance of anything humans could yet accomplish. It therefore wasn't difficult to open up one of the control panels and reprogram it, allowing him to pilot the vessel. He used a handheld musical device to bust open the computer's programs. It was a matter of fifteen minutes, at most.  
After that, he closed the airlock and the escape pod's doors and got the vessel moving. It wouldn't be long before he reached the derelict.

Call emerged from the unreal, liquid world of the ship's computer. Her eyes snapped open and she instinctively took a breath even though, strictly speaking, she didn't need to. The implacable, masked face of Mother Oubliette looked down upon her. She was cradled in the cult leader's embrace.  
"It appears as though you've done it, my dear," she said. "My believers tell me that all systems appear to be working."  
Call struggled away from the other woman, finding her touch repulsive. Her disgust must have been visible on her face, as Mother Oubliette cocked her head to one side and chuckled. "Don't worry. I won't touch you again. Unless you want me to."  
She stood up, towering over Call, who looked tiny in her crouched position. Mother Oubliette accessed the console. It came to life once again, its blue holographic display lighting up the raised section of the room.  
The cult leader manipulated the spherical controls of the ship and Call heard an immense sound, as of something massive moving beneath her as well as the entire room. She stood up slowly, coming to stand by Mother Oubliette. She gazed in awe as the center of the raised section opened up and something emerged from the open space. Something huge.  
It was some kind of seat. A cockpit. Designed for a species nearly three meters tall. Call shook her head.  
"The Engineers," she said.  
Mother Oubliette nodded. "Yes. This was how they piloted the ship. I'm thinking that two of us could sit in that cockpit and fly together." She looked at Call. "What do you say?"  
Call looked at the cult leader, incredulous. Then she looked back at the cockpit. Shook her head. "No. I'm not getting in that thing."  
Mother Oubliette shrugged. "Suit yourself." She started walking away from Call, towards the believers. Her followers. She spoke to Call once more, not looking back at the android. "You may go."  
Call stayed where she was for a moment. She looked about at the control room once more, knowing that it was probably the last time she would ever see it. It was a marvel.  
Then she circled around Mother Oubliette and the believers. Headed out into the main corridor. She didn't want to linger any longer, lest they discover her sabotage.

One believer worked on the access panel leading from the tip of the right U of the alien derelict to the next ship over, where Ripley and Clinch had escaped to. He was hunched over, sweat pouring down his brow, while more than a dozen other believers watched from behind him.  
The believer wiped the sweat from his brow and punched in a last sequence. "I got it. I think I got it!" The door slid open, revealing a main corridor trailing off down the length of the ship.  
"There she is!" one of the believers said, pointing down the corridor.  
Ripley ran towards them. She was frantic, panicked. She saw the group of believers crowding the doorway. In her way.  
"Move aside!" she shouted.  
The believers looked at each other, then at Ripley, confused. One of them chuckled. A few more followed. The laughter sounded more than a little nervous.  
The believer in the lead wasn't laughing. He could now see what Ripley was running from. And why it was worse than running towards a large group of people determined to kill you.  
Surging down the corridor towards them - using their barbed tentacles to move themselves along - were dozens of blasphemers. They looked like an army of daddy long legs flowing through a pipe towards an unsuspecting victim.  
There was a horrible series of screams that echoed down the corridor, coming from the massive pack. The lead believer knew that there was thousands of blasphemers in the Holy Place. If that floating, metal fortress had been breached, they were all dead.  
Many of the believers turned and ran. Three of them got down on their knees and began to pray. Not for salvation or rescue, but of deliverance.  
They knew that this was the End. It had come before any of them had expected it to but it was here nonetheless. The lead believer knew this to be true, as well.  
Ripley rushed by him, knocking him aside. He fell to the floor, looking up in terror as the first wave of blasphemers hit them.  
The first of the creatures reached a believer on his knees. The man's eyes were closed, his mouth opening and closing, whispering a prayer. The blasphemer shrieked, reared back and struck.  
One of its tentacles pierced the top of the man's head. There was a crunch as his skull shattered, followed by a hideous wet sound as his brains were blended by the wriggling tentacle. A fountain of blood erupted from the hole in his head. His hands went slack. His body followed. He slumped over, dead. The only thing keeping him up was the tentacle.  
The second believer on his knees had his eyes open. Tears were streaming down his face. He burbled, saliva flowing down his chin. He seemed to be speaking in tongues. A blasphemer struck out with two tentacles at the same time. Two long, deep cuts appeared in the man's chest.  
The man looked down at his wounds like he couldn't believe what had just happened. Blood began to pool in the wounds before flowing down his stomach. He tried to take a deep breath. It caught in his throat and he started to cough. Blood cascaded from his mouth. He fell forward, onto the bulk of his killer.  
The lead believer got on his knees and brought his hands together in prayer. He was crying now, his eyes unable to close, staring up at the approaching creatures.  
One of them seemed to float towards him. It turned its metal skull of a face towards him. He tried to choke back his fear but it flowed out of him like a spilled glass.  
He panicked and started to get up. The approaching blasphemer surged forward, face first. It shrieked and a long stream of black liquid sprayed from its open mouth. The stream hit the believer right in the mouth. He could feel it slam against the back of his throat. He started to cough and fell to one side, clutching his neck. He could already feel it starting to swell.  
Desperately, he wished for a weapon. Any weapon. Something to end his life as quickly as possible.

Hawke was the first of them to step out of the escape pod and into the madness. She squinted at the dimly-lit hall.  
The corridor she emerged into was tall, designed for a much larger species. It was dark, lit mostly with candles. She could hear screaming echoing down the corridor.  
She narrowed her eyes as she saw something far down, off in the darkness. Two somethings, actually. One was a robed figure - a man - and the other... She didn't know what the other was.  
Reve stepped out of the pod and joined her. He also squinted down the corridor at the approaching shapes. "The fuck is that?" He took two steps closer to them.  
Hawke suddenly knew what that second shape must have been - one of the monsters that Kelly and Johner had mentioned - and began to panic as she saw the robed figure raise a shock rifle. He fired at the hideous monster.  
And it began to fly towards them. She turned to Reve and shoved him aside. She was preparing to jump out of the way herself when the blasphemer whipped by, spinning from the impact of the shock rifle.  
Its tentacles acted like a chainsaw across Hawke's back, splitting her catsuit open and ripping into her flesh. Snapping her spine and ribs.  
Her eyes went wide with shock and pain as the blasphemer sailed past them. She dropped right into Reve's arms. He had landed on his ass on the biomechanical floor.  
"Babe?" Reve said as he cradled her. "Hon? Oh, God. Fuck. No. Come on. No!"  
She looked up at him. Smiled a weak smile. She reached up to touch his cheek. And that was all.  
She went limp in his arms, eyes still wide open and staring at nothing. Her hand dropped away from his face, leaving a bloody hand print behind. She was gone.

Kelly and Johner emerged from the pod. Kelly looked down at the strange couple, one of them dead now. "Shit."  
Johner sprung into action. He surged past Kelly and the others, into the corridor. The blasphemer that had split Hawke in two was back, spearing itself along the ground as it came for them.  
Johner screamed in rage as he pulled the trigger of his flame unit. He turned the burst of fire onto the beast. It shrieked as it went up, instantly turning to fire. It tumbled to the ground, rolling about, as if it could put the fire out. It didn't work and soon it was limp. As dead as Hawke.  
The believer rushed towards them, leading with his shock rifle and yelling as he came. "Infidels!" His eyes looked wild.  
Johner turned to him, not afraid. Shook his head. "Shut the fuck up."  
And he turned the stream of liquid fire onto the believer. The man went up like a candle. He began to scream, dropping his shock rifle and running off down the corridor. Johner chuckled.  
Kelly was on his knees by Reve. He put a hand on the man's shoulder.  
"I'm sorry," he said. "But we gotta go. This place is falling apart."  
Reve was silent. He was still looking down at the body of Hawke in his arms.  
Johner approached them. He looked down at Reve. "Get the fuck up, man. We got some monsters to kill."  
Reve managed to speak through his tears. "You go."  
Kelly shook his head. "Can't do that. Can't leave you here, man."  
Reve wiped away his tears, leaving a streak of blood across his face. He looked up at Kelly. His eyes were insistent. "You go. I'm gonna stay here a little while longer."  
Johner grabbed Kelly. "Let's go, man. He's useless now."  
Kelly continued looking at Reve for a moment longer. Finally, he nodded and got up. He stood next to Johner for a moment. Slowly, he reached into his jacket and pulled something out. It was round, dark green, metal. About the size of an apple. He handed it to Reve. After a moment, Reve took it.  
"MR12," Kelly said. "Best grenade I've ever seen."  
Reve nodded. "I know what it is."  
"Don't have any more, I'm afraid," Kelly said.  
"Let's go!" Johner insisted.  
Finally, the two of them were on their way. They left Reve behind, cradling the body of his beloved.  
He shook his head, the tears returning. "I told you not to dock here. Goddamn it."

Ripley was moving in one direction but her flame unit and head were aimed behind her. She fired the huge burst of fire down the corridor at the approaching blasphemers.  
She was so focused on them that she collided with someone and they both went down in a heap. Their limbs were entangled, wrapped around each other. Ripley kicked out with her foot and hit the other person in the jaw before realizing who it was.  
Call reeled back in shock and surprise. She looked rattled, like her bell had been rung. A line of milky white blood ran down her chin from her mouth.  
"Call?" Ripley said.  
Call shook her head. Her eyes started to clear. "Ripley! You're alive." She smiled.  
Ripley couldn't help but smile back. They both got up. Call's eyes went cross for a moment, then returned to normal.  
Ripley narrowed her eyes. "You sure you're alright?"  
Call nodded. "I'm fine. But we gotta go."  
"Where?" Ripley said. "We can't go that way." She gestured in the direction she had come from. "Damn mutant aliens that way."  
Call turned in the other direction. "That way, then? There must be an umbilical connected to the old space station."  
Ripley nodded. "Alright. It's not like I have any better ideas."  
They both headed off in that direction. Ripley eyed the other woman with suspicion. "How did you get away from them?"  
"They let me go," Call said.  
"Just like that?" Ripley asked.  
Call looked back at Ripley as they ran. "They made me patch into the system. Get navigation working again."  
Ripley looked away from her. Shook her head. "Always a price."  
Call cocked her head to one side. "Well, I did a little more than that when I was inside."  
Ripley shot a glance back at Call. "Yes?"  
Call smirked. "Might've set some key systems to overload. It's gonna get a little dicey around here real quick."  
Ripley smiled. "You naughty girl. I knew you were good for something."  
"Hope that's not all I'm good for," Call said.  
Ripley shrugged. "Time will tell, won't it?"  
The two of them ran down the corridor as fast as they could. Ripley turned around and ran backwards - just as efficiently - firing her flame unit at a pack of approaching blasphemers. Two of them went down in screaming, burning heaps. More of them clattered over their burning comrades, heading towards them.


	13. Chapter 13

An old, unused organic airlock on the alien derelict opened. Orrery stepped out of the jury-rigged escape pod and into the ship. He could hear chaos all about. Something had happened here. What was it?  
A group of seven believers were waiting at the airlock, having heard the unexpected pod dock a moment before. They were standing at the ready, most of them with shock rifles aimed at the airlock. When Orrery stepped out, they stood still, awed. Two of them simply dropped their shock rifles. The rest of them lowered their aim, shocked and awestruck.  
Orrery looked about at this strange group of little people. He recognized them as one of the races that his species had created long, long ago, and that they worshiped him but they were currently in his way.  
He pushed one of them aside, knocking the man to the ground. The believer made a pained wince as the wind was knocked out of him. But he was on his feet again an instant later. Correction: he was on his knees. As were the rest of them a moment later.  
They were crowded around Orrery like rats. He kicked another one aside and took a step forward. The man was up again, a glutton for punishment.  
They wouldn't get out of his way! They were gnats. Lower than pond scum. Just small, little things. They had to be dealt with. Now.  
He grabbed the spear from his back and held it aloft. He extended it, its barbed tips popping out either end. There was a gasped awe from the believers.  
None of them were expecting it when Orrery swung the spear about and then brought it down on the head of one of the believers. The man's skull erupted, splintering apart. Blood spewed out of the wound.  
Four of the others stood up in alarm, not knowing what to do. Orrery yanked the spear out of the man's head. The man fell aside, dead.  
Orrery swung the spear about and stuck it right through three of the standing men. Right through the chests of all three of them. The weapon speared them to the wall, where it stuck in place. Orrery had struck so hard that he couldn't dislodge it from the ship's hull.  
The rest of the believers ran now, scattering in two directions. Orrery was so angry with them - and the entire mission - that he sent his flying blade out after one of the groups.  
The blade sailed through the air and decapitated one of the believers. As the man's head fell off his body, his legs still taking another step before falling down, the blade continued through the air, hitting another of the believer's in the left shoulder. The man's arm came off with a spurt of blood.  
The believer looked down at his now-gone arm with shock and disbelief. He knelt down to retrieve his fallen limb. A moment later, he was hit again by the returning blade. This time it neatly took the top of his head off.  
His eyes rolled up into his head as the top half of his head - right above his eyebrows - fell off. Blood and brains began to flow from the cauldron of skull and flesh. He dropped to the floor, no longer moving, his severed arm clutched in his right hand.  
Orrery, finally satisfied, went on his way, leaving his spear behind. No doubt he could have retrieved it with just a little more effort but he wanted this mission over and done with. As soon as possible.

Ripley and Call almost ran into Johner and Kelly as both of them rounded to the base of the U in the ship. They were being pursued on both sides: Ripley and Call by blasphemers, Johner and Kelly by believers with shock rifles. Many of them.  
There was little time for reunion. There was a large, toothy smile from Johner. Call also found herself smiling, having been worried about Johner despite the man being an utter bastard.  
"Where's Vriess?!" she managed to shout.  
"Headed back to the ship!" Johner replied.  
That was all they had time for. They were being pinned in from either side. Their only escape was into a nearby open door. Call recognized it right away: the control center. She was right back where she started.  
All of them headed into the control center. The drive was unspoken, a short hand between crew-mates that went back some time now.  
They rushed into the control room. Call turned to seal the door behind them. She had learned quite a bit about the ship when she was inside its mind. She used this info to - temporarily, at least - lock out anyone from trying to enter.  
This accomplished, she turned around to face the others. The small smile on her face dropped at once.  
Ripley, Johner and Kelly all had their hands raised. Their weapons on the floor at their feet. At least twenty believers all had shock rifles raised, covering them. Slowly, Call raised her hands, as well, joining her friends.  
The crowd of believers parted and Mother Oubliette stepped forward out of her small sea of followers. She shook her head. "You disappoint me, Call. This kind of insolence will not stand."  
Call scoffed. "This ship - your whole operation! It's all falling apart! Your blasphemers have overrun the ship. We're all dead if we don't leave right now."  
Mother Oubliette stopped at Ripley, seeming to size the other woman up. But she answered Call, not looking at her. "I've no doubt that you have caused our downfall." Now she stepped away from Ripley and approached the android. She took Call's face in her hands. "But we shall be delivered. All of us."  
Call batted the woman's hands away, disgusted. "There's no one coming to save you. No one cares about you."  
There came a pounding on the door. Loud, powerful. Everyone turned to look.  
"Is that them?" Ripley asked. "Those blasphemers?"  
Mother Oubliette took a few steps closer to the door. "I don't think so."  
Still, her followers got ready with their rifles, their trigger fingers itching. Their leader stopped, now just staring at the door.  
A few more pounds and crashes against the door. Then a hand - big and white - erupted through the door, a new hole having been torn through. It was a strange sight. The torn open pieces of the door looked like metal, but also like flesh. Black, horrible flesh.  
Call, Ripley, Johner and Kelly began to slowly back away from the door. Call looked at the believers. They were enthralled, enraptured.  
A second hand joined the first in the hole and began to force the door open. It didn't take long and soon the Engineer was revealed in the doorway. He was horribly burned but his face was slack, almost dead. His eyes, though. His eyes were focused. Murderous.  
Mother Oubliette immediately dropped to her knees. The believers did the same, their weapons clattering to the floor.  
"My Lord, God," Mother Oubliette said. It was clear from her voice that she was crying. "Deliver us, Lord. Take us home."  
Behind the massive figure, they could all see a pile of dead blasphemers on one side of the main corridor and a pile of dead believers on the other. Several of the blasphemers had been ripped open and were bleeding. Call could tell that they were beginning to melt their way through the floor. If that stuff made it to the outer hull...  
The Engineer walked up to the woman. Reached out a soft hand to her masked face. Slowly, he unclipped the mask and cast it aside. Mother Oubliette's horrible face was exposed to them all.  
Johner slowly started to bend down to grab his flame unit. Mother Oubliette spoke out, seemingly able to see what the man was doing behind her back. "Don't touch that!" Johner paused, shook by the woman's voice. She continued. "Don't you see that you're in the presence of greatness?!"  
Johner looked up at the Engineer, the hunter, who had killed Slice. He smirked. Shook his head. "Nah. Just see a big asshole."  
The Engineer looked at him, then back down at Mother Oubliette. He caressed her face. Then he looked at Johner once again. He grasped hold of Mother Oubliette's neck in his massive hand.  
She began to choke. Desperately, she grasped at the powerful hand to no avail. Her face was turning blue.  
The Engineer lifted her off the ground and held her aloft. She struggled in his grasp but it was no good. There was a sickening crunch. Mother Oubliette flailed a few more times, then went limp.  
Before anyone could react, Orrery threw the woman's dead body at the crowd of believers. It was such a powerful throw that a dozen of them were knocked aside.  
Chaos reigned. Believers scattered, running every which way, most of them making it past Orrery and out into the main corridor. One of them fell to the ground at the Engineer's feet. Orrery stepped on the man's head, which burst apart in a shower of blood, bone and brains.  
Ripley, Johner and Kelly all went for their guns. Both Johner and Kelly were knocked over by fleeing believers, getting trampled by the mob. Ripley managed to get her flame unit and began to turn it on the Engineer.  
Orrery saw her and covered the distance between them in a fraction of a second. He grabbed hold of the barrel of the weapon and yanked it out of Ripley's grasp, tossing it against a far wall.  
He grabbed the woman by the neck. Ripley let out a gasp of pain as the massive figure raised her off the ground just as he had Mother Oubliette.  
Both Johner and Kelly had retrieved their weapons by now. They pointed them at Orrery.  
Call ran towards them. "You'll hit Ripley!"  
It seemed hopeless. Ripley was going to die at the hands of this ancient killer. There was nothing they could do.  
Then Orrery jerked in place. He immediately dropped Ripley and began to shake. He looked down at his chest. Blood was beginning to pool there. He bent over in pain, revealing a long spear sticking out of his back. It was the same spear he had been wielding until moments ago.  
Reve was standing behind the Engineer. Hands wrapped around the spear. His face was a mask of rage. Determination.  
He looked at the others. All of the believers had fled, several of them dead on the floor. "Get outta here!" Reve shouted at the living. "I've got this."  
He dug the spear into the Engineer's back with one hand while he reached for the grenade that Kelly had given him with the other. Johner raised his flame unit to the Engineer. Kelly reached out and grabbed Johner by the shoulder. "You'll just set off that grenade! We gotta go."  
Call was at Ripley's side. She took a moment to make sure that the other woman was okay. When she was confident and Ripley stood up, she rushed around the raised section of the room, around the opposite side.  
"Where are you going?!" Ripley shouted.  
"There's a quicker way!" Call said. "Here!"  
The three others rushed to join her. Call was pulling at a panel on the console. Ripley pushed her aside and bit into her wrist, drawing blood. She splattered the blood onto the panel. It began to eat away at the seal at once. Ripley grabbed hold of the panel and yanked, pulling it free and throwing it aside.  
She squatted down and saw a small passageway. She nodded, turned to the others. "Let's go."  
She, Kelly and Johner headed into the passageway at once. Call lingered, looking up at Reve. She had no idea who he was but he was human. And he had saved Ripley's life. Reve had yanked the spear out of the Engineer's back and was now using it like a bat on the large figure, who was still bent over in pain.  
"Come with us!" Call shouted.  
Reve shook his head. "No. I'm here for him!" Another shot with the spear, this time sticking it in the small of the Engineer's back.  
Orrery suddenly whipped around and back-handed Reve. The small man went sailing into the doorframe. He was impaled upon one of the jagged edges of metal flesh that Orrery had torn open. He hung there, mounted in the doorway like a trophy. He looked down at his stomach, where the jagged edge was sticking out.  
He looked at Call. "Go!" He still had the grenade in his hand, which he lifted as high as his waning strength would allow. Call shook her head and proceeded into the small passageway.  
The passageway dropped down to a lower level, a hold of some kind. It was a large space but Call knew right where to go. She led the way, forcing herself ahead of the others.  
She could feel the ship begin to shake all about them. Her sabotage was beginning to take hold. Systems were frying out everywhere. The infrastructure of the ship was starting to crack. It wouldn't be long now.  
She found what she was looking for: another small tunnel. An air duct. Ripley, without having to be told, ripped the organic metal grating away and they crawled into this one, as well.  
They headed up at an alarming angle. It was tough going but they made it, emerging on the other side into the main corridor, right near the airlock leading to the space station.

Orrery slowly walked to the center of the control room. He winced in pain and yanked the spear out of his back, tossing it contemptuously aside. It clattered against a wall.  
He stepped up onto the raised section, making his way to the pilot's chair. He ran a hand along it, shaking his head. They hadn't made a design like this in well over a hundred years. Incredible.  
He punched a sequence into the chair. It came to life, pulsed like a living thing. He nodded. Salvageable, perhaps. Yes, perhaps.  
"Hey, you fuck!"  
It was the little insect that had stabbed him. Still alive, then. He turned around to look at the insignificant little man. He was nothing. What could he do now?  
Then he felt the ship beginning to shake. Something was wrong. The systems were blinking out, exploding, throughout the ship. What was happening?  
The little man held something small in his hand. Something metallic green and in the shape of a ball.  
"We're going together, motherfucker," Reve said with a smile.  
He pressed something on the ball. It began to blink red. He tossed it over his shoulder. It hit the ground in the main corridor. Orrery watched it as it bounced once, then fell into the open, gaping hole created by the blasphemer's blood.  
His eyes widened. He looked up at the little man.  
Reve laughed. "Bye, bye."  
There was a muffled explosion from beneath them. Then all the atmosphere in the room and the main corridor beyond was gone in an instant. Ripped out of the ship by a hole in the hull.  
Reve was torn off the door, ripping in half and immediately being plunged into the hole. Orrery followed right behind him. His massive body was pulled into the shape of a pretzel as it was forced through the hole, to the deck below and finally, off into the Void.

All of them in the airlock of the space station, Call closed the door behind them. It was just in time.  
The space station was rocked, knocking them all to the floor. They were up in an instant, all of them looking out the window of the airlock door.  
The umbilical connecting the space station to the derelict was torn away as the alien ship spun out of its orbit. It was an incredible, terrible sight. The tunnel of the umbilical shook, then tore itself away, revealing deep space beyond. The massive shape of the alien ship spun like a top. Reve's explosion and Call's sabotage had irrevocably damaged it.  
Call could see air leaking out of it, eaten up by the Void. She shook her head. So many lives lost. It was awful.  
Then she frowned as she saw something else. Johner cocked his head to one side. "That what I think it is?"  
Call nodded. "Yes, it is."  
"Fuck," Ripley said.  
Streaming out of the large hole in the derelict were thousands of blasphemers. Now in their element, free from the confines of gravity, they sailed gracefully towards the space station, as if they could sense the humans inside. Perhaps they could.  
"What are they gonna do?" Johner said.  
Ripley shook her head. "We need to get out of here."  
"What?!" Johner said.  
"She's right," Call said.  
The first wave of blasphemers hit the station. The four humans craned their necks to look up towards them. Two of the blasphemers turned to another and immediately tore it apart with their tentacles. They then forced it against the hull. The thing's blood began to eat away the metal at once.  
"Ah, shit," Johner said.  
Then they were all running. To the first stairwell - the first airlock sealed behind them as an upper deck was exposed to the Void - and down.

They reached the transit center, all of them - except Call - out of breath. As the rest of them took a breather, Call looked about, ran along the length of the station. All of the escape pods were gone. None of the old transit cars were functional. It was a dead end.  
They were all going to die. Call stopped.  
Ripley joined her a moment later. She put a hand on Call's shoulder. Call looked up at the other woman. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it, looking away.  
"I know," Ripley said. "It's futile. We're not going to make it. Those things are gonna force their way in and we're going to be sucked out."  
"We can find a way," Call said.  
"No," Ripley insisted. "You'll survive. Get to Vriess. You two can get out of here. Don't think. Just do it."  
Call suddenly felt something stream down her face. It was an unfamiliar feeling. She looked at Ripley.  
The other woman was looking at her with a quizzical face. She gently reached out and touched Call's cheek, her fingers coming away wet. "You're crying." Amazed.  
Call reached up and touched her face. Yes, she was crying. What was this? How was it possible?  
She didn't know. All she knew was that it was happening. She locked eyes with Ripley. After a moment, they kissed. It was the most wonderful and most horrible thing that Call had ever experienced.  
When it was over, the android buried her head in Ripley's shoulder. She couldn't stop the tears now. She must have been malfunctioning. There was no other explanation.  
She wrapped her hands around Ripley. The other woman hugged her back. If this was going to be the end, they wanted it to count for something.  
Then Call heard something beeping nearby. She and Ripley looked up, towards one of the vacant escape pod airlocks. It was blinking green.  
It wasn't empty anymore.  
The two of them ran to it. Johner and Kelly joined them. As they approached it, the airlock slid open. Through the doorway, they could see the docking port of the Betty.  
"What are you waiting for?!" Vriess' voice crackled over the intercom. "Get in!"  
Call smiled and all of them ran through the airlock and into the Betty. Once they were all clear, Call sealed the airlock behind them and shut the doors of the Betty.  
"Punch it, Vriess!" Ripley yelled down the length of the ship.

The Betty pulled away from the station. Ripley was in the cockpit next to Vriess in an instant. She took control of the ship and came about when they were clear of the station's orbit.  
Kelly, Johner and Call were in the cockpit a moment later. They strapped themselves in.  
The orbit around the space station was filled with thousands of hideous black dots. They looked like cockroaches swirling about like dead leaves but Ripley knew that they were blasphemers.  
She looked at the derelict, spinning off towards the power array. For a moment, she questioned her actions. There was so much to learn from the alien ship. But she knew what had to be done.  
She brought the Betty to bare upon the immense processors of the space station, on the underside of it. She looked at Vriess. "You know what to do."  
"Do I ever," Vriess said.  
He hit a button on the console and another set of control sticks slid out on either side of the wheel. He grabbed hold of them and fired the devastating guns they had installed in the Betty.  
A moment later, the lower half of the space station exploded. It spun out of its orbit - a dance of death - and hit the derelict. What remained of the station exploded on impact. The alien ship was also wrecked, one of the arms of its U shape crumbled and fell away.  
The debris of both floating space junk careened towards the Holy Place. The ship was so old that it broke apart at once. Less of an explosion and more of something glass being smashed against a wall. Call crossed herself one last time.  
Next came the power array. When they hit it, the array exploded. It held so much power from the white dwarf that it orbited that the explosion was brilliant. It lasted longer than Ripley thought would have been possible.  
When it died down, what remained of all four structures fell towards the star. Where they would be utterly destroyed.  
Nothing could have survived that. Or, at least, Ripley hoped so.  
She sighed and looked over her shoulder at Call. Call was smiling. Ripley frowned. "What are you smiling about?"  
"I know what you're thinking," Call said.  
"You can read minds now?" Ripley asked.  
"Only yours," Call said.  
"Then enlighten me. What am I thinking?"  
"You wish you could have had time to study the ship," Call explained. "Learn its secrets."  
Ripley nodded. "That's true. Then tell me something."  
"What?" Call asked.  
"Why are you smiling?"  
Call looked down but she was still smiling. "I downloaded everything I could from the derelict." She looked up now. Tapped one of her temples. "It's all in here."  
Slowly, Ripley smiled back.

***

A week later, the four of them were lying low at some shitty space station outside regulated space. They had dropped off Kelly on New Chicago. Ripley had offered the man a place on their ship but he had declined. Call was certain that he would bounce back. Always looking for a hustle, that one.  
They had once again taken two large rooms. Ripley and Call in one, Johner and Vriess in the other.  
Call was lying in bed, fully clothed, looking up at the ceiling. The ceiling was a non-offensive, bland beige. Nothing special but she studied it like her life depended upon it. She didn't know why. She supposed that she was trying to take in everything that she could. Preserve it somehow, just in case the human race died out one day.  
She heard the water in the bathroom shut off. Ripley was done with her shower. Call didn't look.  
Not more than a day after the affair on the complex, Ripley had shed again. Spilling her old skin for a new model. Would she be around forever? Like Call? The android wouldn't have admitted it to herself but this idea pleased her.  
Ripley approached the bed, toweling off. She stepped up onto the bed, tossing the towel away. She stood over Call, completely naked. Looking down at her.  
Call could no longer ignore the other woman. She turned her gaze onto her and stifled a gasp. Ripley was so beautiful. The most beautiful person Call had ever seen.  
She began to sit up, her hands rising to touch Ripley's bare form, but her captain stopped her with a foot on her chest. She pushed the android down, soft but forcefully. Call fell onto her back once again.  
"Your turn," Ripley said with a wicked smile.  
They hadn't been together - not in that way, at least - since the escape pod in the complex. Call was beginning to wonder whether that was going to be it. It made her sad. She wanted more. Wanted to make Ripley feel good. But this...  
"I..." Call began. "I can't. I don't think I can."  
Ripley shook her head. "I don't believe you." She put a bare foot on Call's face.  
Call closed her eyes as something began to stir deep within her. She could feel the sole of Ripley's foot on her chin. Could feel her toes tickling her nose. Without thinking, Call took that leap, surrendered herself to whatever was happening.  
She opened her mouth and licked Ripley's foot, moving her head up to get the woman's toes in her mouth. Ripley chuckled as Call tickled her foot. She pulled it away from Call.  
The android longed for the toes and began to sit up again. Ripley gently hit Call in the forehead with her foot, sending her back onto the bed.  
Ripley got on her knees, straddling Call. She leaned over. "Open your eyes." Call did as she was told. Ripley nodded. "Good. I said that it was your turn. Hopefully, the first of many."  
They kissed. It was long, loving, passionate. Call could feel herself breathing heavy, which made no sense to her. She didn't need to breathe. But it was happening, as if it was an automatic response. Had the last generation of synthetic people - those who had designed Call's generation - programmed something into her? Into she and her sister? Into all of them? Something new? Something indefinable?  
The kiss broke and Ripley pulled away, looking down at the android. Her fingertips curled into the seams of Call's jumpsuit.  
With sudden force, Ripley tore open the clothes, ripped off the sleeves. Call was now naked from the waist up, her small breasts exposed to the cold air, her nipples hard.  
But Ripley didn't stop there. She shuffled down Call's body and continued to tear away the android's clothes. Soon, Call was naked except for her socks and boots.  
Ripley ran her hands along Call's legs, feeling her socks. They were dark and striped. "Have I ever told you how much I love your socks?"  
Call shook her head. It was as if she suddenly couldn't talk. As if she were malfunctioning. But that wasn't the case. Something else was happening.  
Ripley traveled back up Call's body until they were face to face. Another soft, quick kiss. Call could see a thin, almost invisible rope of saliva trailing from her lips to Ripley's.  
Then she felt Ripley's hand curl between her legs. She gasped. No one else had ever touched her there. The sensation was like being shocked, only this was pleasurable. Almost unbearably so.  
She closed her eyes again and grit her teeth as Ripley began to make love to her. Her hands clutched at the covers of the bed.  
Ripley bit at the android's chin - gnawed at it - before moving to her neck, like a vampire. Call grabbed hold of Ripley's back now. She whispered into her ear. "More. More."  
Ripley obliged. Her hand was like magic. Like alchemy. Witchcraft. None of it made any sense to Call's computer of a brain.  
But she couldn't deny it was happening. She was here. Ripley was here. What was happening between them was real.  
Ripley moved her head up again. Call opened her eyes and locked her gaze with Ripley. She nodded frantically. "Yes. Please, yes."  
Ripley brought her over the edge. It was like a religious experience. Like nothing Call had ever experienced.  
She bit down on her bottom lip, drawing milky white blood. Ripley leaned down and licked it away, her tongue curling back into her mouth with the white liquid.  
When it was over for Call - her whole body shaking - she started to laugh. Ripley looked down at her lover, confused for a moment. Then she, too, began to laugh.  
Then Call was crying. It was all too much. Overload.  
Ripley took her in her arms. They lay on the bed together for a long time, neither of them speaking. After some time, Call's tears subsided.  
She was more than just a collection of organic circuits. More than a machine. More than a thing. She knew that now. Ripley knew it, too. Call was sure of it.  
She didn't know what the future held for them. The information Call had downloaded from the derelict provided many avenues of possible exploration. What she did know was that the two of them would be exploring those avenues together.  
Finally, Call found the strength to speak. She pushed Ripley over and straddled her.  
"Now it's your turn," she said.  
Ripley only smiled in response.

"If travel is searching  
And home what's been found  
I'm not stopping  
I'm going hunting"  
\--Bjork, "Hunter"


End file.
